Inconvenient ethical dilemmas
BY SHANT FABRICATORIAN
It was a policy twist Sir Humphrey Appleby would have been proud of. ‘We should always support law and justice. We just shouldn’t let it affect our foreign policy…’
In this bind lies Australia’s stance on the death penalty. The executions of the three ‘Bali bombers’ this month has once again thrown the issue of the death penalty into sharp relief, emphasising the contradictions between the Labor Party’s stated policy, and its actions.
For the record, Labor’s official party platform on capital punishment reads as follows: ‘Labor opposes the death penalty and believes that death by hanging, beheading, electrocution, firing squad, or stoning is inhumane, no matter what the crime. Labor in government will strongly and clearly state its opposition to the death penalty, whenever and wherever it arises and will use its position internationally and in the region to advocate for the universal abolition of the death penalty.’
This is about as clear-cut a policy statement as you will find from any party, on any issue. No correspondence will be entered into, the referee’s decision is final, et cetera. Kevin Rudd himself certainly seemed to think so, telling his biographer Robert Macklin in 2006: ‘I believe the death penalty is repugnant at every level and we have a responsibility not just to speak out against it when it applies to Australians, but to argue uncompromisingly that the time has come for the world to put an end to this medieval practice.’
Seen the loophole yet’
Unfortunately for all concerned, things started to get messy around this time last year. At the height of the federal election campaign, and approaching the anniversary of the Bali bombings, then-Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Robert McClelland attended a public meeting on human rights.
As Patrick O’Connor detailed at the time, a reporter from The Australian asked whether Labor still believed that those convicted of the bombings should have their death sentences commuted. McClelland’s ‘mistake’ was to articulate the above ALP policy, which promptly appeared on the front page of the next day’s The Australian under the headline, ‘Save Bali bombers: Labor’.
Predictably, McClelland was thoroughly dressed down by Rudd for the ‘insensitive’ timing of the comments. If nothing else, the timing ‘ a month out from the election ‘ was certainly politically insensitive. Sent to the naughty corner and told to consider the error of his ways, it didn’t take long to issue the obligatory apologetic statement. Rudd made an attempt to clarify Labor’s position: ‘…when it comes to the question of the death penalty, no diplomatic intervention will ever be made by any government that I lead in support of any individual terrorist’s life. We have only indicated in the past, and will maintain a policy in the future, of intervening diplomatically in support of Australian nationals who face capital sentences abroad.’ This was a position clearly evidenced by the fact that Rudd himself spoke out against the execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006.
Not that the disrepute was constrained to just one side of politics. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was quick to condemn Rudd’s humiliation of McClelland at the time, issuing a press release stating: ‘While Mr McClelland’s campaign to save the Bali bombers is misguided, it is at least consistent with the Labor Party’s longstanding policy position, as articulated by Mr Rudd and set out in the party’s platform.’ What Downer neglected to mention is that Australia’s opposition to the death penalty is bipartisan, and that opposition to the death penalty ‘ at least in principle ‘ is likewise a longstanding policy position for the Liberal Party.
Former prime minister John Howard also took the opportunity to engage in selective principled behaviour when asked about the possibility that the Bali bombers would escape execution. ‘I think that would be very, very bad,’ he replied. ‘I accept that many people will think it is inconsistent of me to say and I’ve acknowledged this before…I personally don’t support capital punishment in Australia. It follows from that whenever an Australian is sentenced to death overseas I’ll argue for the remission of the sentence.’
Unfortunately, in the interim, no-one seemed terribly interested in pushing for a clarification of the policy. In recent weeks, this ridiculous double standard has once again been pushed to the fore, and with more brazenness than ever.
Certainly there seems to be little appetite for introspection on the government’s part. In the lead-up to the executions of the Bali bombers, Rudd emphasised that Labor was, ‘universally opposed to the death penalty. We make no exception to that.’ Except the time, less than a month earlier on October 3, when he observed that the bombers, ‘deserve the justice that will be delivered to them.’ As The Economist noted this week, it’s a case of, ‘All right then, just this once’.
Except that it isn’t. Rudd insists that Labor’s policy on the death penalty has not changed. In this estimation, he is certainly correct. It remains just as incoherent as it was 12 months ago.
With three of the original ‘Bali 9’ still on death row, it’s worth revisiting some of McClelland’s other comments at that now-infamous forum. Executions in Asia, he said, ‘place our nationals at risk of being executed in neighbouring countries.’ Moreover, an unprincipled stand ‘reflects badly on our capacity to improve human rights in our region and advance the cause of universal abolition.’ On the question of Australia’s battered international reputation, he made the point that this was, ‘in no small part due to the Howard Government’s unsophisticated and politically convenient approach to applying human rights standards.’
He was correct on all counts. It gives Asian governments and media another stick to beat us with. We cannot possibly expect not to be called on our hypocrisy if we insist on protecting only our own. We certainly can’t expect to have our appeals on behalf of Australian nationals taken seriously.
The irony is that, for all the complex issues involved, a principled stand on the death penalty is just that ‘ principled, and unwavering to the winds of political expediency. It is only those who try to be too clever that end up tying themselves in philosophical knots. It’s a lesson Rudd should understand more than most.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/bali-o13.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/bali-n05.shtml
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2007/fa071009.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22562621-12377,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24579351-2702,00.html
http://asiadeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2007/06/australia-rudd-would-oppose-death.html
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/10/10/opposing-the-death-penalty-political-death/
