World Psychiatric Association recommends abolishing death penalty for mentally ill, those with development disabilities

The World Psychiatric Association in a General Assembly in Vienna recently approved a statement recommending the abolition of the death penalty on people suffering from mental illnesses or any form of intellectual or developmental disability. .The development took place on September 30 and holds significance as it is for the first time that a professional organisation in the field of psychiatry — representing 145 psychiatric societies across 121 countries — has adopted a such position..The authors of the statement, including members of the collective, Project39A of the National Law University, Delhi (NLUD), highlighted that any person with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities should not be awarded the capital punishment owing to the heightened risk of their fair trial rights being violated and given the overall violation of their dignity in the criminal justice system..Mental illness and Intellectual disability in IndiaIn India, 539 prisoners were on death row as on December 31, 2022 which is a 10% rise in the number of death row prisoners from 2021, when there were 490 persons facing capital punishment.A 2021 study conducted by Project39A on the mental health of such prisoners showed that 62% of such persons were suffering from at least one form of mental illness.It was found that 9 out of 83 death row prisoners interviewed had been diagnosed with an intellectual disability and that the mercy petitions of three of them had already been rejected. Over 75% prisoners were found to have deficits in intellectual functioning.Another crucial aspect was the rate of suicidal ideation among prisoners sentenced to death, which stood at 13.8%. 8 prisoners had attempted suicide in prison while 94% of them were at risk of suicide, the report added..World view and Indian perspectiveMost countries have abolished the death penalty as a form of punishment. As of July 2023, 112 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while only 55 countries retained it in practice. Some other countries have either retained the death penalty for exceptional offences or have retained the death penalty, but have not executed anyone in a decade.In 2022, only 20 countries carried out executions. Even though under international law, the death penalty is to be imposed only “in the most exceptional cases and under the strictest limits”, there are multiple instances across countries, where the death penalty is imposed on the most vulnerable persons, including those with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities..In the US, imposing the death penalty on persons with intellectual disability is prohibited.In 2015, the Privy Council quashed the death sentence of a prisoner from Trinidad and Tobago who had chronic schizophrenia and in 2017 it agreed that the execution of a person with “severe learning difficulties” was a cruel and unusual punishment.The Supreme Court of India in Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India has held that the onset of mental illness post-sentencing amounts to a supervening factor, warranting the commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment.The top court also underscored the need for regular mental health evaluations of all death row prisoners and appropriate medical care to those in need. .In Accused X v. State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court of India considered severe mental illness and prolonged incarceration as relevant factors to commute the death penalty of a prisoner in 2019..Recommendations in the statementThe statement calls for mental health evaluations of persons who are at risk of being sentenced to death and asks for conducting such evaluations at every judicial stage to ensure that persons with mental illnesses or developmental and intellectual disabilities are neither sentenced to death nor executed.“The death penalty should not be imposed on any person with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities and no person with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities should be executed on account of the heightened risk of violation of fair trial rights and overall violation of their dignity in the criminal justice system,” it adds..The authors of the statement are:Maitreyi Misra, Director (Mental Health and Criminal Justice), Project 39A, National Law University, Delhi. Namrata Sinha, Research Associate (Mental Health and Criminal Justice), Project 39A, National Law University Delhi. Neeraj Gill, Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra and Griffith University, School of Medicine, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. Soumitra Pathare, Consultant Psychiatrist, Director, Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, ILS Law College, Pune. Afzal Javed, President, World Psychiatric Association..[Read Position Statement]