Public Attitudes towards Death Penalty Provisions: Relevance of Ethico-Phenomenological Principles in the Operation of Articles 3 (3) & 19 (2) of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana

摘要

The death penalty is a form of capital punishment instituted by the constitution which requires that certain crimes as dictated by the law are punished by death. This survey specifically examines the role of ethics in public consideration of the death penalty provisions in the context of abolitionist/retentionist debate. This research employed a qualitative design and was guided by three which include : to examine the justification offered by people who expressed standards on death penalty, among others. A sample size of 300 respondents were randomly and conveniently sampled from the 37 military interdenominational church es and stratified into three strata of Kanda-Estates, Nima 441 area, and Mamobi and questionnaire administered. The results indicate that compared to the hard-core supporters of the death penalty, those who considered retributionism held more value conflicts around deterrence and capital punishment for some crimes, whereas those who considered rehabilitationism held more value conflicts among reformation and those who preferred reconstructionism had conflicts around all major crimes. This research emphatically recommends that the death penalty be abolished under the new constitution and replaced with life imprisonment without parole. It also recommends that any amendment to abolish the death penalty be approved by a national referendum, as it involved an entrenched constitutional provision.