The Prohibition of Torture and Ill-treatment in the African Human Rights System: A HANDBOOK FOR VICTIMS AND THEIR ADVOCATES that lessened the perpetrator’s moral blameworthiness. The accused (Bosch) was convicted of a serious and gruesome offence (murder), involving considerable effort and planning. Even where the circumstances of the individual offender give rise to extenuation, the nature of the offence ‘cannot be disregarded’.227 However, the Commission’s position regarding the death penalty does not conform to international norms which prescribe the circumstances under which the death penalty may not be imposed; that is, against juveniles, pregnant women and mentally disabled persons, as well as the unlawfulness of mandatory death penalty statutes. It may also be argued that the issue in respect of sentencing is not the proportionality of the sentence, but the form that the punishment takes. It may for example be argued that, even if the death penalty is under certain circumstances proportionate to the crime, the method of execution may amount to a cruel form of punishment, in conflict with Article 5. In the Bosch case, the complainant submitted that the form of execution in Botswana (hanging) is cruel and amounts to ‘unnecessary suffering, degradation and humiliation’.228 In its decision, the Commission does not deal with this argument, presumably because the decision is premised on the notion that international law does not outlaw the death penalty irrespective of the form it takes. The Commission upheld this view and similarly declined to address the argument regarding the cruel and inhuman nature of death by hanging in the case of Egyptian Intiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt.229 The complainant in the Bosch case also argued that failure to give reasonable notice of the date and time of execution is a violation of Article 5, and that this failure ‘makes’ the execution a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Although it declines to rule on this argument due to the fact that the Respondent State did not receive ample notice of this argument in order to prepare a response, the Commission observes in an obiter dictum that the ‘justice system must have a human face in matters of execution of death sentences’.230 In support of this statement, the Commission quoted a decision of the United Kingdom’s Privy Council, to the effect that a condemned person must be afforded an opportunity ‘to arrange his affairs, to be visited by members of his intimate family before he dies, and to receive spiritual advice and comfort to enable him to compose himself as best he can, to face his ultimate ordeal’.231 These remarks indicate that, in an appropriate case, failure to observe these minimum guarantees could render execution a violation of Article 5 of the Charter. 227 228 229 230 231 60 Ibid., para. 37. Ibid., para. 5. ACHPR, Egyptian Intiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, Comm. No. 334/06. ACHPR, INTERIGHTS (on behalf of Mariette Sonjaleen Bosch) v. Botswana, Comm. No. 240/2001, para. 41. United Kingdom Privy Council, Guerra v. Baptiste, Appeal Case Nos. 397 & 418 (1996).