202. The Court notes its findings in the present Application that the provision for
the mandatory imposition of the death sentence in the Respondent State’s
legal framework violates the right to life protected in Article 4 of the charter.
However, the Court notes that the violations did not impact on the
Applicant’s guilt and conviction, the sentencing is affected only to the extent
of the mandatory nature of the penalty. The Court holds that the
commission of the offence as adjudicated by domestic courts has remained
unaffected in the proceedings before this Court.
203. Given the foregoing, the Court holds that an order for release of the
Applicant is not warranted. Consequently, the prayer is dismissed.
iii. Rehearing
204. The Applicant prays the Court to order a resentencing hearing in the
alternative to being released from prison. He submits that notwithstanding
the presidential commutation, the imposition of the death sentence was the
result of “an extrajudicial proceeding” that failed to consider a range of
alternative sentences. He submits that he is still entitled as a matter of right
under the Charter to an adversarial resentencing hearing before an
impartial judge, where the defence can present mitigating evidence and
where the judge would have the discretion to impose a range of possible
sentences, including a term of years.
205. The Court wishes to first clarify that the failure of the Respondent State to
consider alternative sentences does not necessarily render the related
proceedings extrajudicial as the Applicant avers. In the instant case, the
proceedings that led to the sentencing of the Applicant were judicial in the
sense that they were conducted by competent courts in application of
relevant laws of the Respondent State.
206. Turning to the actual prayer being considered, this Court recalls that while
it does not assume appellate jurisdiction over domestic courts, it has the
power to make any order as appropriate where it finds that national
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