"I would just summarise, very shortly, the qualities and aspects of this penalty which make it to all of us a revolting and barbaric thing. It is hot only the melodrama and sensationalism with which these proceedings are surrounded; it is not only the sordid squalor, every detail of which spreads into the newspapers in every one of these crimes, and whose effect on juvenile delinquency has never been measured but must be very considerable; it is not only the relentless finality of this penalty, the relentless finality which makes this result that once it has been inflicted there is no room for rectification if there were error or miscarriage of justice. No one who knows the records can doubt that there have been cases of error, that there have been miscarriages of justice, and that innocent men have in fact been executed. Above all these things, there is the sense which we all have that this penalty, of itself, denies the very principle on which we claim the right to inflict it—namely, the sanctity of human life."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomJews from the United KingdomLawyers from EnglandLabour Party (UK) politiciansDemocratic socialists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Speech in a debate "New Clause (Suspension of death penalty)", House of Commons Hansard (14 April 1948) vol. 449 cc. 979-1098, 980
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_Silverman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Sydney Silverman
Samuel Sydney Silverman (8 October 1895 – 9 February 1968) was a British Labour Party politician. An opponent of capital punishment, he proposed multiple Private Members' Bills against the Death penalty in the UK. The last of these, which became the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, eventually achieved his objective.
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Sydney Silverman →
Related Quotes
"It seems to me that this problem of the distressed areas cannot be dealt with as though it were a problem existing by…"
"It is no accident that the distressed areas we are discussing are the very areas which, in the past, have contributed…"
"I think it is true to say that the people of this country have no enthusiasm for this or for any war, but they would …"
"It may be that you hold the view that no kind of peace is possible unless the Nazi regime in Germany is removed. If t…"
"It is possible that the war might go on for many years before we got peace. You could create a European desert and ca…"
"Sydney Silverman will be remembered as one of the great backbenchers of the House of Commons. The respect he commande…"
"In a certain sense, many of us mutilate the mind and render it impotent, for there is in the nature of man an irresis…"
"Lamb had written to Coleridge about one of their old masters, who had been a severe disciplinarian, intimating that h…"
"Dined at Gooden’s, where I met among others , the Secretary of the . He surprised me by saying that he knew Goethe on…"
"Lamb was the first English writer of eminence whom Crabb Robinson tried to convince of the excellence of Goethe."