The strongest argument for the death penalty was the simple invocation of the name of Hitler - or in more recent days, Saddam Hussein. What fate but death could possibly be appropriate for the world's most wicked men? But the appalling images and stories from Saddam Hussein's actual execution chamber in Baghdad have dramatically reversed the argument. Here was irrefutable proof that execution dehumanises not just its victims but its perpetrators. It was a disgrace not just to the present Government in Iraq but also to those who put it in power, which has to include the British. If the ex-dictator of Iraq will be remembered for anything, it is the personal dignity he preserved in the face of taunts and insults even as the trap door opened beneath his feet, his prayers strangled in his throat.

Everything was wrong about the way Saddam was dealt with. The execution for the mass murder of 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982 was allowed to take precedence over the continuing trial of those, including Saddam, accused of responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Kurds later in the same decade. The Dujail trial itself was little more than a parody, though the evidence indicating Saddam's guilt was never really challenged. It was manifestly "victor's justice", a show trial, an opportunity for the Americans to gloat at the discomfiture of their old enemy. Certainly no alternative verdict could have been countenanced in Washington, whose own reputation for fair and just dealing in Iraq has been damaged yet again.

The idea that his execution was the judicial act of a sovereign government that had to be respected even if one disagreed with it - the British Government's line - was undermined by the way it was carried out as an act of sectarian vengeance, almost a public lynching, with several of those watching shouting out the name of the Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, and jeers in Arabic of "go to hell". The impious and disrespectful shambles was officially ...

Every human person is a someone, not a something. The essence of Benedict XVI's New Year message for peace is this simple affirmation that shows how close contemporary concerns for human rights are to gospel values. The Pope's particular point this year was that observance of human rights is the only sure route to peace, together with a warning that an inadequate grounding for the doctrine of rights quickly ...

Should the Government regard stable marriage as better than all other forms of family structure, particularly single parenthood and unmarried partnerships? This is the first question brought up by the publication of an interim report of the Conservative Party's Social Justice Policy Group, and the answer is undoubtedly "yes". It is not only Christian teaching that says that a permanent commitment between ...

Serious issues are raised by the Government's proposals to forbid discrimination on the grounds of homosexuality, particularly as they are likely to impact on the work of church welfare agencies. The Catholic Church is not alone in finding a key requirement - that voluntary adoption agencies treat homosexual couples on the same basis as married heterosexuals - an uncomfortable challenge to its moral convictions. ...