Ramkarpal: First sentence review to start next week following abolition of mandatory death penalty

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 6): The first case hearing for a sentence review under the Mandatory Death Penalty Abolition Act 2023 will be held on November 14 at the Federal Court in Putrajaya, said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) Ramkarpal Singh.

He told Parliament that a total of 924 sentence review applications have been submitted to the Federal Court.

“Out of that number, 807 are death sentence reviews and 117 are life imprisonment reviews,” Ramkarpal said in the Dewan Rakyat during his winding up speech for the debate of the Supply Bill 2024 at committee stage today.

When the Act came into effect in September, over 1,000 prisoners who were handed mandatory death or life imprisonment sentences were eligible to apply in court to review their sentences.

Ramkarpal was responding to DAP’s Damansara MP, Gobind Singh Deo, who asked how much was spent on the process of sentence reviews and how many have applications have been made.

According to Ramkarpal, the government has spent RM12 million for the purpose of processing the applications which include legal aid services.

He also said that the time period for submitting an application for review of the death penalty and life imprisonment is within three months from the effective date of the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act.

The Act came in effect on September 12, 2023.

On the time fame for completion of the review process, Ramkarpal said there was none set.

“The filing and hearing process will be carried out in stages taking into account various factors according to priority including the age of the prisoner, the level of health and the length of the prisoner’s imprisonment as well as other urgent considerations,” he added. — Malay Mail