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14 September 2025
Arguments against death penalty
By Marianne Haslev Skånland
In the debate before our recent Norwegian parliamentary election, I noticed some suggestions of (re)introducing death penalty in Norway. The question was raised both in connection with a fairly clear danger of criminal groups of a mafia type gaining more of a foothold – the situation in Sweden is a close and relevant warning – and also because there is apparently an increase of very young individuals, down to early teens, taking to violence, threats and aggravated robbery.
In postings and comments abroad there are often proposals of death penalty when individual criminals and their doings are discussed.
Death penalty appeals to our craving for justice. Some crimes are so atrocious that neither 21 years in prison nor preventive detention without a time limit are felt to be adequate compensation.
But there are several good reasons against the use of death penalty. We need not be asked to ignore our anger and our desire for 'something to be done'. Strong emotions, however, need to be held up against information and rational deliberation. This is surely what 'realism' means: not to ignore our feelings but to consider them in the light of knowledge before making decisions. So what do we know about the use of death penalty?
Hardly anybody in Norway would suggest death penalty for teenagers, not even if they seriously attack and abuse or even take the life of other young individuals.
But even more generally the existence of death penalty carries with it elements of danger. Considerations about such elements move our focus from the criminal to ourselves, analysing us. There are good reasons why serious punishment should be ordered and carried out by society, not by victims or other individuals. Even then, however, it is quite a question what happens to us if so strong an action is allowed as infliction of death on members of our society.
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Death penalty carries with it the following possible results:
1
Miscarriage of justice in the form of judicial murder.
When death penalty is employed, it is never possible to guarantee completely that there will never be execution of innocent individuals. We can go back in history to well-known tragedies which, for instance, sprang from ideology and superstition. But miscarriage of justice happens in our own days, more often than we like to think, and it has happened in several countries with death penalty, in times of peace, that innocent people have been executed, after seemingly adequate court procedure.
It amounts to unjustified self-confidence to believe that it can be avoided, even if legislation says that death penalty can only be imposed if guilt has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Reality is more complicated, hence we have wrong 'identification' of persons by witnesses or police, incorrect memory of time and place, the witnesses' own feelings, presumptions and prejudices. Courts of law are not very perfect in their assessments of all this.
In Norway we need to be awake to the fact that 'guilty' judgments and imprisonment of innocent people take place, not least after the not so distant cases of Baneheia, Birgitte Tengs, Silje in Trondhjem, the Thomas Quick cases in Sweden, and the Per Liland case. These and other cases have exposed that neither court procedure, nor the demand for proof or the evaluation of it are always as good as they should be. If death penalty exists, we must count on many and serious miscarriages of justice with catastrophic result.
2
The effect on those who have to carry out the executions.
A country should least of all put bandits, with a presumably barbaric emotional life, in charge of a job like that on behalf of the community.
On the other hand, perhaps the state should not burden decent, reasonable citizens with that type of job either; it has an effect on them. In war, killing is more impersonal, soldiers who carry out killings in war do so under command and not by their own choice, and with considerable limitations on when it is allowed. Even so we know that permitted killing in war has a considerable, negative effect on some soldiers in their later life.
3
The general effect on society.
The result of a practice of death penalty, in the form of effect on some members of society, is negative by increasing aggression, self-assurance and the use of brute force generally. Particularly in very serious cases it may lead to the unfolding of very strong emotions (cf footnote 1).
4
The effect in some court cases may be negative.
In a serious case, a case in which a long prison sentence ought to be employed if the accused is found guilty, the accused can – if death sentence is possible – actually be found not guilty although it is fairly obvious that he/she is guilty. This can happen if there are among those who bring in the decision ( – whether they are a jury or judges) some who are strongly opposed to death penalty, but who in the case in question realise that this will be the result if the decision is 'guilty'.
This argument against death penalty was described as realistic by John Major in a long interview in connection with abolishment of the death penalty in Britain. He gave it as one of the reasons for abolishment: Death penalty makes the judicial system less functional, in that some serious crimes go unpunished (cf footnote 2).
5
The European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Council of Europe was established in the aftermath of the 2nd World War, a major reason being to prevent repeats. The Council has formed and adopted the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as an instrument to further human rights and the rule of law in the signing countries. The Convention was signed in 1950. Several additional Articles have been passed later; additional 'Protocols' show these.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the Council's instrument to enforce the ECHR. All countries which have joined the Council of Europe are bound by the ECHR and by the judgments and decisions of the ECtHR. (Russia stood before exclusion or suspension, but left the Council of Europe.)
Under the ECHR, abolition of death penalty is obligatory except in war, and there are conditons of ratification and of the implementation of abolition (see Protocol No. 6, passed on 28 April 1983). There are obviously important reasons why this Article has been incorported among human rights.
So if Norway were to introduce death penalty, it would distance our country rather sensationally from the work of European countries for humanity and civilisation, and might exclude Norway from the Council of Europe and from the ambit of the Human Rights convention.
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Footnotes
(1)
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, section "Background"
Wikipedia, sist editert 10 juli 2025
(2)
Julian B. Knowles QC:
The Abolition of the Death Penalty in the United Kingdom
How it Happened and Why it Still Matters
The Death Penalty Project, 2015
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See also
Siv Westerberg:
Child Prisons? In Sweden?
– : Norway and Sweden – where inhuman rights prevail
MHS's home page, 7 May 2012 / 11 November 2017
Olav Terje Bergo:
A Bollywood lesson for Norway on humanity
MHS's home page, 31 October 2023
Nils Morten Udgaard:
Norway and 'civil society'
MHS's home page, 13 November 2016
Convictions of Norway in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in cases concerning child protection (Barnevern)
Recorded by Marianne Haslev Skånland
MHS's home page, 12 March 2020, updated on 12 September 2023
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
The Council of Europe with a critical report on European child protection systems
MHS's home page, 4 July 2018
– : The Norwegian state's interpretation of the ECtHR judgments about our child protection Barnevernet
MHS's home page, 9 March 2020
– : Human rights in Norway – as low as they can go
MHS's home page, July 2004
– : On the Hague Convention re international child abduction: Custody demands from other sources than parents
MHS's home page, 10 October 2017
– : Norwegian Supreme Court judgment: A father is to go to jail for 5 months for having kept his daughter away from the cps Barnevernet's care
MHS's home page, 7 June 2017
– : Apology for the past? Trust in the future? What about the present?
MHS's home page, 9 June 2015
– : Prison and foster home – this is what the system is like
MHS's home page, 19 January 2017
– : Norwegian Barnevernet's use of duress and force against children
MHS's home page, 24 November 2016
– : Hillary and Bill Clinton – zealous promoters of forced adoptions in the USA
MHS's home page, 23 November 2020 / 6 July 2021
– : Terrible case of CPS 'care' in Britain leading to the death of a handicapped child in foster 'care'
MHS's home page, 11 June 2014
– : Judgment in Poland: a nine-year-old girl NOT to be extradited to Norway
MHS's home page, 11 December 2014
Jan Simonsen:
Poland with new legislation to protect Polish children against Norwegian Barnevern
MHS's home page, 3 January 2017
Onar Aam:
The hidden news from Cologne
MHS's home page, 27 January 2016
Marius Reikerås:
A brief report in the wake of the two ECtHR judgments against Norway on 10 March 2020
MHS's home page, 24 March 2020
Bjorn Bjoro:
Deficient rule of law in child protection cases in Norway
MHS's home page, 25 July 2015
Majoran Vivekananthan:
The illusion that all is well in the end
MHS's home page, 5 May 2023
Arne Jarl Hatlem:
Barnevernet – the CPS – equals merciless Norwegians
MHS's home page, 29 July 2018
Kristine Bolstad:
The CPS took everything I had – and smashed it
MHS's home page, 26 July 2021
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