12 Years Without an Execution: Is Zimbabwe Ready for Abolition? A survey of public attitudes towards the death penalty Mai Sato Acknowledgements The survey would not have been possible without the contribution and expertise of Eldred Masunungure (director) and Stephen Ndoma (principal researcher) at the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI). The author would like to thank Greg Linington, from the University of Zimbabwe, who was extremely helpful in making sure that the survey questionnaire reflected the changes made in the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe. Val Ingham-Thorpe, of Veritas, provided useful socio-political insights into understanding the death penalty in the Zimbabwean context. Sincere thanks are also due to Roger Hood for his detailed and thoughtful comments as project consultant. The author is also grateful to Mike Hough and Amanda Morgan, for their valuable comments and edits on the survey questionnaire and the report, and to CPL for the infographics. The author would also like to thank Parvais Jabbar and Saul Lehrfreund, co-executive directors of The Death Penalty Project, for their continued support and trust over the years, and for commissioning this study. A very big thank you to Sophie Blake, Annette So and Oskar Butcher, of The Death Penalty Project, who were vital in seeing the project through to completion. This report was made possible by a grant to The Death Penalty Project from the Magna Carta Fund of the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office. ©2018 The author Published by The Death Penalty Project All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage retrieval system, without the permission of the authors. Copies of this report may be obtained from: The Death Penalty Project 8/9 Frith Street, Soho London, W1D 3JB www.deathpenaltyproject.org ISBN: 978-1-9996417-0-2 Contents Foreword .......................................................................................................................... 7 Editors’ preface .................................................................................................................. 9 Headline results .............................................................................................................. 10 Background: the death penalty in Zimbabwe ..................................................................... 12 De facto abolition ..................................................................................................... 12 Colonial legacy ........................................................................................................ 13 2013 Constitution ................................................................................................... 14 Data and methods ........................................................................................................... 15 Baseline result on death penalty attitudes ......................................................................... 17 Public understanding of the death penalty ........................................................................ 20 How informed is the Zimbabwean public? ................................................................. 20 Knowledge and death penalty attitudes ...................................................................... 21 Scope of the death penalty: execution of young and elderly people and women .................... 23 Murder with aggravating circumstances: scenario-based questions .................................... 26 Reasons for retention and abolition .................................................................................. 29 Deterrence .............................................................................................................. 29 Morality and religion ............................................................................................... 32 Putting death penalty support in context .......................................................................... 33 Perceived effectiveness of different crime-reduction policies ......................................... 33 Perceived consequences of abolition ........................................................................... 34 Conclusion: is public opinion a barrier to abolition? .......................................................... 37 References ...................................................................................................................... 38 Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 40 About the author ............................................................................................................. 58 About The Death Penalty Project ..................................................................................... 59 4 List of figures Figure 1: Baseline result: death penalty attitudes on a five-point scale ........................................ 17 Figure 2: Level of knowledge concerning the death penalty ....................................................... 21 Figure 3: Respondents’ sentencing preferences: proportion of respondents who selected the death penalty ............... ............................................................................................... 27 Figure 4: Most important reason given by respondents for supporting retention or abolition ..... 30 Figure 5: Respondents’ confidence in policies to reduce violent crime: respondents’ first choice ... 33 Figure 6: Perceived consequence of abolition (responses by retentionists) ................................... 35 List of tables Table 1: Methodology at a glance ................................................................................................ 16 Table 2: Binary logistic regression predicting strong support for the death penalty ..................... 19 Table 3: Perceived applicability of the death penalty .................................................................... 24 List of appendices Appendix 1: Questionnaire in English ......................................................................................... 40 Appendix 2: Demographic distribution of the sample ................................................................. 57 Appendix 3: Article 48 of the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe .................................................. 57 5 Foreword The right to life, though not absolute, is at the apex of the fundamental rights protected by the Zimbabwe Constitution. Mere mention of the right to life might presume the absence of the death penalty; however, capital punishment remains a conundrum in Zimbabwe. The penalty is retained on our statute books and people continue to be sentenced to death, yet the last execution was carried out in 2005. Consequently, Zimbabwe is one of 48 countries that may be classified by the United Nations as abolitionist de facto. Moreover, in recent years, the 2013 Constitution has restricted how the death penalty can be applied. One of the principal reasons given by the government when justifying Zimbabwe’s retention of the death penalty is that it has democratic legitimacy. The main evidence to back up this claim is that, during a national consultation on Zimbabwe’s new Constitution, a small majority was in favour of retaining the death penalty. However, this data offers little insight into how Zimbabweans feel about the death penalty today. As Zimbabwe finds itself at another critical juncture in its history, the time has come to revisit the question of our relationship with the death penalty. We believe this research, commissioned by The Death Penalty Project and undertaken by Dr Mai Sato, comes at an important time in the political evolution of the country. In this report, Dr Sato investigates the strength of public opinion regarding retention of the death penalty in Zimbabwe, to interrogate the claim that the public would reject abolition. Dr Sato’s conclusion is compelling; although a small majority of Zimbabweans continue to favour the death penalty, it is evident that such support is qualified. When asked what they would do if the government abolished the death penalty, the vast majority of those who supported it said they would be willing to accept the new policy. The findings suggest that public opinion does not pose a barrier to abolition in Zimbabwe. Dr Sato’s nuanced inquiry is relevant not only to Zimbabwe, but to all countries where apparent public support for capital punishment is cited as a barrier to abolition. The report’s findings should encourage governments to question their assumptions about public attitudes towards the death penalty and to take the initiative in leading the debate on abolition. It is clear that more information, education and engagement of civil society is needed and, when considering abolition, any discussion of public opinion must be supported by comprehensive and contextualised data, such as that provided in this report. It is, after all, a matter of life and death. Elasto Hilarious Mugwadi Chairperson Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission April 2018 7 Editors’ preface The global use of the death penalty has been declining steadily for decades. More than two-thirds of the world’s nations have now abolished the death penalty in law or committed themselves to not carry out executions. In fact, executions were carried out in only 23 countries in 2017. However, a number