long stay on death row could entail a violation of that provision. In arriving at that conclusion, the majority made a number of assumptions: APPENDIX II Individual opinion submitted by Mr.Prafullachandra N. Bhagwati, Mr. Marco T. Bruni Celli, Mr. Fausto Pocar and Mr.Julio Prado Vallejo pursuant to rule 94, paragraph 3, of the Committee’s rules of procedure, concerning the Views of the Committee on communication No. 588/1994, Errol Johnson v. Jamaica 1. That the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not prohibit the death penalty, though it subjects its use to severe restrictions; 2. That detention on "death row" is a necessary consequence of imposing the death penalty and that, no matter how cruel, degrading and inhuman it may appear to be, it cannot, of itself, be regarded as a violation of articles 7 and 10 of the Covenant; The development in the jurisprudence of the Committee with regard to the present communication obliges us to express views dissenting from those of the Committee majority. In several cases, the Committee decided that prolonged detention on death row does not per se constitute a violation of article 7 of the Covenant, and we could accept these decisions in the light of the specific circumstances of each communication under consideration. 3. That, while the Covenant does not prohibit the death penalty, it refers to its abolition in terms which strongly suggest that abolition is desirable; 4. That the provisions of the Covenant must be interpreted in the light of the objects and purposes of that instrument and that, as one of these objects and purposes is to promote reduction in the use of the death penalty, an interpretation that may encourage a State to make use of that penalty should be avoided. The Views adopted by the Committee in the present case reveal, however, a lack of flexibility that would not allow to examine any more the circumstances of each case, so as to determine whether, in a given case, prolonged detention on death row constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of article 7 of the Covenant. The need of a case by case appreciation leads us to dissociate ourselves from the position of the majority, and to associate ourselves to the opinion of other members of the Committee who were not able to accept the majority views, in particular to the individual opinion formulated by Ms. Chanet. On the basis of these assumptions, a majority of the members of the Human Rights Committee have arrived at certain conclusions which entail, in their opinion, a finding that there has been no violation of articles 7 and 10 of the Covenant on the part of the State that is the subject of the communication: 1. That a State party which executes a condemned person after he has spent a certain period of time awaiting execution would not be in violation of the provisions of the Covenant, whereas one which does not execute the prisoner would violate those provisions. This implies that the problem of length of detention on death row can be dealt with only by setting a cut-off date after which the Covenant would have been violated; APPENDIX III Individual opinion submitted by Mr. Francisco José Aguilar Urbina pursuant to rule 94, paragraph 3, of the Committee’s rules of procedure, concerning the Views of the Committee on communication No. 588/1994, Errol Johnson v. Jamaica 2. That making the time factor the one that determines a violation of the Covenant conveys a message to States parties that they should carry out a death sentence as expeditiously as possible after it is imposed; 3. That to hold that prolonged detention on death row does not, per se, constitute a violation of articles 7 and 10 of the Covenant does not imply that other circumstances connected with such detention may not turn it into cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. The Human Rights Committee has established in its jurisprudence that the death row phenomenon does not, per se, constitute a violation of article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee has repeatedly maintained that the mere fact of being sentenced to death does not constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. On some occasions, I have agreed with this position, subject to the proviso that, as I also wish to make clear in this individual opinion, I believe that capital punishment in itself constitutes inhuman, cruel and degrading punishment. While subscribing to several of the arguments put forward by the majority, I agree with only the last of their conclusions. I consider the majority opinion debatable: 1. I agree that, while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not prohibit the death penalty, it does subject its use to severe restrictions; In my opinion, the Committee is wrong to seek inflexibly to maintain its jurisprudence without clarifying, analysing and appraising the facts before it on a case-bycase basis. In the communication concerned (Johnson v. Jamaica), the Human Rights Committee's wish to be consistent with its previous jurisprudence has led it to rule that the length of detention on death row is not in any case contrary to article 7 of the Covenant. 2. I also agree that, since capital punishment is not prohibited, States parties which still include it among their penalties are not prevented from applying it - within the strict limits set by the Covenant - and that the existence of "death row" (in other words, a certain period of time between the handing down of a death sentence and the execution of the condemned person) is, therefore, inevitable The majority opinion seems to be based on the supposition that only a total reversal of the Committee's jurisprudence would allow it to decide that an excessively 3. I also consider that there is no doubt that the Covenant suggests that abolition of the death penalty is desirable; 133