Panday: Review murder laws

Leader of the Opposition, Basdeo Panday, has called for a reform of our laws on murder. This was his reaction to Wednesday’s ruling by the British Privy Council that anyone convicted of murder must be hanged. The Lords ruled by a five-to-four majority that while our Constitution supported “the right of the individual to life,” it also did not annul pre-existing laws such as the 1925 Offences Against the Person Act, which mandated the death penalty for murder.

In a response, Panday told Newsday, “We have got to review our laws to have degrees of murder.” Noting that all murders were not the same, he explained, “They differ according to the circumstances of the case.” Panday urged that murders be classed variously as either first degree, second degree or third degree. He said this categorising of murder should be done even if the court had initially refused to downgrade a murder charge to manslaughter. Panday has been calling for broad constitutional reform.