Deprivation of the Right to Pardon: Saudi Arabia's Path to Escalating Executions

International laws and treaties impose obligations on countries that still implement the death penalty to ensure that individuals facing this punishment are granted their full rights, including the right to seek pardon.

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon, or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases." The Arab Charter on Human Rights, in its Article 6, confirms that every person sentenced to death has the right to seek pardon or to have the sentence commuted to a lesser penalty.

In Saudi Arabia, the King holds full authority to grant pardons in cases of public rights, which are cases where the state or society is the aggrieved party, rather than an individual. However, in cases of private rights, pardons cannot be granted without the consent of the rightful owner or the heirs of the victim. Article 23 of the Saudi Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that public criminal cases can be dismissed under specific conditions, including a pardon from the ruler.

On special occasions, the King may announce a royal pardon, such as during the month of Ramadan. Typically, royal pardons come with specific conditions and exclusions, often excluding crimes that threaten state security. The criteria for receiving a pardon often include good behavior in prison and the length of the sentence, among other factors.

In Saudi Arabia, judicial rulings are divided into three categories:

Hudud: These are punishments for crimes considered transgressions against the limits set by God, which include various types, such as drinking alcohol, adultery, and banditry.
Qisas: In Islamic jurisprudence, it is a punishment that requires the offender to be punished in the same manner as the crime committed
Ta’zir: It is a punishment imposed by the judge and not mentioned in the law and Sharia.

Regarding death sentences, the right to pardon also depends on the type of ruling issued. Hudud sentences are not subject to pardon, and in Qisas sentences, the right to pardon belongs to the victim's family as it falls under private rights. Consequently, the King has the right to pardon in Ta'zir rulings.

Saudi Arabia claims to base its death sentences on Islamic Sharia law, beginning announcements of executions with Quranic verses and reiterating its commitment to applying a moderate interpretation of Islam and eliminating extremist rulings. This approach is intended to be reflected in judicial rulings based on interpretations of Quranic verses and Hadiths.

However, a review of several judgment documents and the tracking of certain cases, especially involving political detainees, reveals that religious texts and statements from hardline clerics are selectively used to justify unjust rulings and impose harsher penalties on victims. Many clear texts that encourage and promote pardon are often ignored.

Application of Pardons in Saudi Arabia:

According to monitoring by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, although an annual royal pardon is issued for prisoners of public rights, it does not include detainees facing the death penalty.

A person sentenced to death has the right to seek a pardon from the relevant party. In Ta'zir sentences, where individuals face charges related to public rights, there is often no victim or victim's family. The only authority empowered to grant a pardon is the "Wali Al-Amr," meaning the King. The Royal Court is considered the sole means of communication between citizens and the King and his Crown Prince.

In addition to the lack of any pardons in these cases in recent years, there is no clear mechanism for seeking a pardon, and the only known mechanism is to submit a request to the Royal Court. Nevertheless, the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights received information confirming that the General Investigation Directorate summoned a member of a family of individuals sentenced to death in a political case, warning them against submitting similar requests to the Royal Court again, considering that the family does not have the right to submit a pardon request to the Court, and that it only has to submit a request to the specialized criminal court in Riyadh that issued the judgment.

ESOHR believes that the right to seek a pardon is a fundamental right for every person facing a final death sentence. In cases where there is no victim and the charges are political, and the judgment is based on the judge's discretion, the party directly responsible for implementation or pardon is the King, and not the court, whose role is limited to issuing the judgment

ESOHR sees the use of the available royal pardon as a clear way to reduce the increasing numbers of executions, which contradict official promises to mitigate the use of this punishment. ESOHR points out that the repeated promises of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to halt death sentences in cases permitted by Islamic law primarily involve the King's use of pardon as a means to stop the implementation of death sentences that currently threaten at least 70 individuals, many of whom do not face charges of the utmost seriousness, including 8 minors.

ESOHR also emphasizes that depriving individuals facing punitive sentences of their right to seek pardon is a violation of international laws and a clear indication of Saudi Arabia's insistence on expanding the arbitrary use of the death penalty.

Source: esohr.org, Staff, May 22, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog