Amnesty International has released its 2011 report on Swaziland, which detailed an overall negative picture of repression of dissent, politically-motivated security measures, police and prison brutality, excessive use of force, and deprivations concerning health, economic security, and women's rights. The report also detailed Swaziland's status as a de facto abolitionist country. According to the report, no executions have taken place in the country since 1983, and no new death sentences have been imposed. Two people remained under sentence of death.
For all the criticisms possible of Swaziland's undemocratic 2006 constitution, the country has a relatively good track record on the death penalty. Sandwiched between two fervently abolitionist countries, South Africa and Mozambique, Swaziland essentially wrote its mandatory death penalty out of existence in favor of a discretionary regime in a series of Court of Appeal decisions starting in 1999. Dlamini (Daniel) v. Rex, appeal case No. 11/1998 (unreported). The decision, confirmed in later Swaziland Court of Appeal cases, was essentially codified in Swaziland's new constitution in 2005 in a clause specifically forbidding the mandatory death penalty. Swaziland Constitution art. 15(2). I suspect it is highly unlikely that Swaziland will ever carry out another judicial execution.
For the Amnesty report, click here.
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