Malaysia has agreed to abolish the mandatory death sentence and replace it with other punishments at the discretion of the court, its law minister said on Friday, revisiting a pledge made over three years ago.
The cabinet also agreed to study substitute sentences for all offences carrying the death penalty, Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said.
The death penalty remains mandatory for several offences in the Southeast Asian nation, including murder and drug trafficking.
Malaysia has had a moratorium on executions since 2018, when it also made a promise to abolish mandatory and discretionary capital punishment.
But the government backtracked in 2019, saying it would scrap mandatory capital punishment but leave it for courts to decide if a person convicted of a serious crime should hang.
Mr Wan Junaidi said the decision followed a recommendation by a government committee reviewing alternative punishments.
"The decision shows the government's priority in ensuring the rights of all parties are protected and secure, and reflects the transparency of the national leadership in improving the country's dynamic criminal justice system," he said in a statement.
The legislation will need to be enacted in parliament to make the changes, and Mr Wan Junaidi said it would "take a little while", but did not provide a timeframe for when it would initiate processes to change the laws.
The process is "not as simple as people would imagine it", he added.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said on Twitter that all relevant laws will be amended to accommodate the changes.
While welcoming the announcement, campaigners also expressed caution.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement as a positive step but said it was important to ensure Malaysia follows through.
"We need to see Malaysia pass the actual legislative amendments to put this pledge into effect because we have been down this road before, with successive Malaysian governments promising much on human rights but ultimately delivering very little," its deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said.
Amnesty International Malaysia's executive director Katrina Jorene Maliamauv hailed the move as "a welcome step in the right direction, and we urge (the government) to go further and work towards full abolition of this cruel punishment.
"We have seen and documented time and time again how the use of mandatory sentencing has disproportionately harmed the most marginalised and disenfranchised members of society."
Opposition lawmaker Ramkarpal Singh — whose party was in power when the government first proposed abolishing the death penalty — indicated he was supportive of the move.
"We always advocated for the abolishment of the mandatory death penalty," he said.
