A resumption of hangings is not the right response to the recent spike in murders in Barbados, two prominent lawyers declared on Wednesday.Past president of the Barbados Bar Association Andrew Pilgrim, Q.C. and fellow attorney-at-law Senator Gregory Nicholls rejected the idea of capital punishment as a deterrent while discussing constitutional reform on VOB’s Down to Brasstacks call-in programme.There have been no state executions in Barbados in almost four decades, and the death penalty was removed as automatic punishment for murder in 2019, a year after the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional. However, High Court judges still have the discretion to impose that sentence for the capital offence.Responding to a caller who raised the issue in light of gun killings in recent weeks, Pilgrim categorically rejected the idea that the courts should go that route, saying that such a move would be abhorrent.
