4. In any event, it cannot be denied that the provisions of the Covenant should be interpreted in the light of the object and purpose of this treaty. However, while I agree that one of the objects and purposes of the Covenant is to reduce the use of the death penalty, I believe that that is precisely as a consequence of a greater purpose, which is to limit the grounds for death sentences and, ultimately, to abolish the death penalty. (a) I do not believe that it is possible to project the future behaviour of a State which has repeatedly refused to comply with its obligations under article 40 (submission of periodic reports), since the Committee has been unable to question the Government authorities on that specific point; (b) The ultimate result has been to benefit a State which, for at least a decade, has refused to comply with its treaty obligations, giving it the benefit of the doubt with regard to behaviour which should have been clarified under the procedure set forth in article 40. In the case of the present communication, and of the many which have been submitted against Jamaica during the last decade, it is regrettable that the State party, by refusing for the past 10 years to comply with its obligation to report to the Human Rights Committee under article 40 of the Covenant, has denied the Committee the opportunity to pronounce on the application of the death penalty in Jamaica as part of the procedure for consideration of reports. Jamaica was to have submitted its second periodic report on 1 August 1986 and 3 August 1991. The Committee is not competent to decide what would be preferable in cases like that of the communication under consideration. Neither should it transform this communication into a mere hypothetical case in order to induce unspecified State officials to behave in a particular manner. Any opinion should be based on the concrete circumstances of Mr. Johnson's imprisonment. This means that, for 15 years, the Human Rights Committee has been prevented from considering whether the death penalty is imposed in Jamaica in accordance with the strict limits imposed by the Covenant. Furthermore, any decision regarding this communication should be taken on a strictly legal basis. There is no doubt that the certainty of death constitutes torture for the majority of people; the majority of those sentenced to death are in a similar position. Independently of the fact that it is my philosophical conviction that the death penalty, and therefore its corollaries (being sentenced to death and awaiting execution) constitute inhuman, cruel and degrading punishment, I must ask myself whether those facts - and, in a case such as this one, the phenomenon of death row - are in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I do not, however, agree with the conclusion, at which the majority have arrived, that it is, therefore, preferable for a condemned person to endure being on death row, regardless in any case of the length of time spent there. The arguments of the majority are, in any case, subjective and do not represent an objective analysis of treaty norms. In the first place, it is stated as a basic assumption that awaiting execution is preferable to execution itself. This argument cannot be valid since, as I have said, communications such as the one under consideration can be viewed only in the light of the attendant circumstances; in other words, they can be decided only on a case-by-case basis. Any opinion comes up against the fact that the Covenant does not prohibit the death penalty. It cannot, therefore, be maintained that the death row phenomenon, per se, constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Nor can implementation of the death penalty be prohibited. Furthermore, a claim such as that of the majority is completely subjective. It represents an analysis of human behaviour which expresses the feelings of the members of the Committee, but which cannot be applied across the board. For example, it would not be surprising if a person condemned to death who was suffering from a terminal or degenerative illness preferred to be executed rather than remain on death row. It is not surprising that some people commit murder for the purpose of having the death penalty imposed on them; for them, every day spent on death row constitutes real torture. However, all States parties must minimize the psychological torture involved in awaiting execution. This means that the State must guarantee that the suffering to be endured by those awaiting execution will be reduced to the necessary minimum. In that regard, the following guarantees are required: 1. The legal proceedings establishing the guilt of the person condemned to death must meet all the requirements laid down by article 14 of the Covenant; 5. I also disagree with the position that, in this case, to rule that the excessive length of time which Errol Johnson spent on death row constitutes a violation of the Covenant would be to convey a "message" to States parties that they should execute those condemned to death expeditiously. This, again, is a subjective opinion of the majority and represents the feelings of the Committee members rather than a legal analysis. Moreover, it presents the additional problem of defining a priori how States parties will behave. 2. The accused must have effective access to all necessary remedies until his guilt has been demonstrated beyond a doubt; 3. Reasonable time-limits must be set for the exercise of these remedies and for their review by independent courts; 4. Execution cannot take place until the condemned person's last remedy has been exhausted and until the death sentence has acquired final binding effect; In that regard, I also regret that the State party has not allowed the Committee to weigh its position on the imposition of the death penalty. Indeed, this is one of the facts which leads me to dissent from the majority opinion: 5. While awaiting execution, the condemned person must at all times be duly accorded humane 134