This cases were made reference to in Onuoha v State (1998) – SC. 24/1996:
✓ In Mbushuu and another v. The Republic (Criminal Appeal No. 142 of 1994; 30th January, 1995), the Tanzanian Court of Appeal held that although the death –penalty is a form of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” it affirmed that it was nonetheless constitutionally permissible, having regard to the qualified nature of the right to life as entrenched in the Tanzanian Constitution. The right to life in their Constitution was neither absolute nor unqualified. It was, as in section 30(1) of our Constitution, qualified.
✓ In the Zimbabwean Supreme Court case of Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, in Zimbabwe v. Attorney-General, Zimbabwe and other (1993) (4) SA 239 in which Gubbay, C.J. delivering the judgment of the court with which Me Nally, Korsah, Ebrahim and Muchechetere JJ.A were in full agreement impliedly adopted the position that the right to life under their Constitution was qualified and thus upheld the constitutional validity of the death penalty in Zimbabwe. Said the learned Chief Justice: “It was not sought, nor could it reasonably be, to overturn the death sentences on the ground that they were unlawfully imposed. The judgments of this court dismissing the appeals of the condemned prisoners cannot be disturbed. They are final. And the constitutionality of the death penalty, per se, as well as the mode of its execution by hanging, are also not susceptible of attack.”
However, on the crucial issue of whether even though the death sentences had been properly passed, supervening events had not been established to constitute the execution of the convicts inhuman or degrading treatment, in violation of section 15(1) of the Zimbabwean Constitution on account of prolonged and excessive delay, the court, on the peculiar facts of the case resolved the same in favour of the convicts.
✓ In Bacan Singh v. State of Punjab (1983) (2) SCR 583, the constitutionality of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution came into question before the Supreme Court of India. In a well considered judgment, that court ruled, and quite rightly in my view, that the right to life entrenched in their Constitution was qualified and that in the circumstance, the death penalty was constitutionally valid. In conclusion, the court observed: “By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that the death penalty either per se or because of its execution by hanging constitutes an unreasonable, cruel or unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution.”