discretion of national courts, leaving them with no choice but to automatically impose a death sentence upon conviction.46 152. The mandatory death sentence removes the judge’s discretionary power to consider proportionality and the personal circumstances of the convicted individual when determining the sentence, which is essential for ensuring due process in criminal proceedings. By taking away the discretionary power of a judge to impose a sentence on the basis of proportionality and the personal situation of a convicted person, the mandatory death sentence does not comply with the requirements of due process in criminal proceedings.47 153. The Court considers that if the domestic courts of the Respondent State were vested with discretion to determine the sentencing of persons found culpable of murder, the High Court, for instance, could have legitimately considered all the factors that the Applicant has raised before this Court in possible mitigation of his sentence. 154. In the circumstances, the Court holds that the mandatory death sentence, as prescribed by section 197 of the Respondent State’s Penal Code, does not meet the third criterion for assessing arbitrariness of the sentence. 155. It, therefore, holds, in line with its established jurisprudence, that the mandatory death penalty is contrary to the right to life, including the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of human life.48 156. The Court recalls that the Applicant’s death penalty was later commuted to a life sentence through a Presidential pardon in May 2020, but this reprieve came after the Applicant had endured six (6) years on death row. It is imperative to emphasise that this commutation to life imprisonment does 46 Juma v. Tanzania (merits and reparations), supra, § 130; Rajabu and Others v. Tanzania, ibid, § 109; Henerico v. Tanzania (judgment), ibid, § 148 47 Ibid. 48 Rajabu and Others v. Tanzania, supra, § 114. 39