court is only concerned with facts which lessen the seriousness or culpability of that particular criminal conduct. 33. Second, extenuation relates to moral blameworthiness. It is the state of mind of the offender at the time of the commission of the offence that is a relevant consideration otherwise offenders would use any personal circumstance totally unrelated to the conduct complained of to escape punishment. 34. In considering whether or not extenuating circumstances exist, the inquiry is: [*}Whether there were at the time of the commission of the crime facts or circumstances which could have influenced the accused‟s state of mind or mental faculties and could serve to constitute extenuation; 1. Whether such facts or circumstances, in their cumulative effect, probably did influence the accused‟s state of mind in doing what s/he did; and 2. Whether this influence was of such a nature as to reduce what he did. 35. The claimed capacity for redemption or reformation and or good character is certainly not connected with the commission of the particular murder and therefore not relevant considerations to this finding of extenuating circumstances. 36. In deciding on the proportionality of a sentence one would have to fully weigh the seriousness of the offence against the sentence. It is quite evident from the Court of Appeal records that the murder committed by Mrs Bosch involved considerable effort and careful planning. 37. Thus while the African Commission acknowledges that the seriousness or gruesome nature of an offence does not necessarily exclude the possibility of extenuation, it cannot be disputed that the nature of the offence cannot be disregarded when determining the extenuating circumstances. As such, the African Commission finds no basis for faulting the findings of both the trial court and Court of Appeal as it relates to this issue. Issue of Reasonable Notice 38. It was submitted that failure to give reasonable notice of the date and time of execution amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment in breach of Article 5 of the African Charter and that execution under such circumstances violates the protection of law provisions under Article 3 as it deprives an individual the right to consult a lawyer and obtain such relief from the courts as may be open to him or her. 39. It should be noted that this issue was not addressed by the Respondent State in its written submissions primarily because it had not been communicated to it. The issue was not even raised in the Authors‟ consolidated submissions of the record of their oral submissions on admissibility made at th th the 30 Session and submitted to the African Commission‟s Secretariat on 18 March 2002. 40. The issue only surfaced with the Author‟s written submissions distributed shortly before the hearing of the matter at the 31st Session of the African Commission. It was therefore not surprising that no useful submissions or submissions at all were made on behalf of the Respondent State on the issue. Neither was there any debate on the issue at the instance of the Commissioners, as they had not had an opportunity to consider those submissions. 41. In the circumstances it would be fundamentally unfair to the Respondent State to deal with the substance of this issue save to observe that a justice system must have a human face in matters of execution of death sentences by affording a condemned person an opportunity to “arrange his affairs, to be visited by members of his intimate family before he dies, and to receive spiritual advice and 6 comfort to enable him to compose himself as best he can, to face his ultimate ordeal” . Alleged violation of Article 4: Clemency procedure was unfair 42. This is one of the two issues raised rather belatedly and the approach in issue 3 above applies and the comments made hereunder are for future guidance in matters of this nature it being pointed out that the communication procedure is an attempt to achieve or address failed justice at the