Edmond Campbell and Adrian Frater, Senior Staff Reporters

PARLIAMENTARIANS, ARMED with a made-up conscience, are today sche-duled to hand down a verdict on whether to abolish or retain the death penalty in Jamaica.

The decision is expected, despite a late appeal from Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller for a special date to be set for the vote.

Andrew Gallimore, acting leader of government business in the House, told The Gleaner yesterday that the vote would be taken in Gordon House this afternoon.

Last week, Prime Minister Bruce Golding adjourned the debate on capital punishment to allow more members to participate in the crucial decision today.

Reflection

More time was also given for members to reflect on their positions before registering their conscience vote on the controversial issue.

Clerk to the Houses of Parliament, Heather Cooke, confirmed yesterday that the agenda for public business had not changed. This means that, about 2:30 p.m., legislators will say 'yes' or 'no' to hanging.

Simpson Miller, who was absent from last Tuesday's sitting, will again be missing from the House.

Senior Opposition MP Robert Pickersgill argued that, on a matter of such national importance, a specific date for voting should have been set from the beginning of the debate.

"When the debate is of such fundamental importance and attracts so many participants, a date should be set," he insisted.

Pickersgill said Simpson Miller had made arrangements to travel overseas prior to the date set for a parliamentary vote on the death penalty.

"I am pretty sure she would want to be here," said Pickersgill, adding that he was ready to vote on the issue.

Government MPs are expected to be out in their numbers to answer the call.

According to Gallimore, except for Derrick Smith, leader of government business, who isreceiving treatment for diabetes overseas, no other member had indicated that they would be absent.

Meanwhile, human rights lobby group, Jamaicans for Justice said debate on the retention or abolition of hanging was premature, arguing that the perpetrators of crime must first be caught.

On Sunday, Falmouth Mayor Colin Gager declared hanging "the only way the crime monster can be successfully tamed".

"I believe that, once a man is proven beyond doubt in the courts of the land that he has committed a heinous crime such as murder, he should go to the gallows, nowhere else," said Gager, who was speaking at a Parent Day church service in Falmouth, Trelawny.

Meanwhile, the Jamaican Bar Association is moving to convene an extraordinary general meeting to discuss recent developments in the debate on hanging.

President of the association, Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, said her organisation had observed that the debate had extended beyond the resumption of hanging to broader constitutional issues, as to what constitutes cruel and unusual treatment, which was forbidden by the Constitution.

"We also note that this constitutional principle has been the subject of decisions by our highest court and that the proposal from some parliamentarians would involve reversing these decisions, thus taking away constitutional protections," she said yesterday in a release.

Samuels-Brown noted that the position of the association would be announced following the meeting.