Japan would be better off without the death penalty, which does not remove threats to the public and lowers society to the same level as someone who commits murder, Italian human rights activist Mario Marazziti said in a recent interview.

Whether a convicted killer remains alive in prison or dies, "the world, Japan, nobody, the life of anybody does not change because they are already in jail," the co-founding member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty told Kyodo News in Tokyo. "So the population is safe in both cases."

The former member of the Italian parliament said capital punishment can also indirectly work against the interests of Japan as it discourages other countries strongly opposed to executions from sharing information on transnational crimes.

Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven industrialized nations still handing down capital sentences. The European Union, which bars countries with the death penalty from joining the bloc, has been vocal in calling on Japan to review its stance.

In an opinion poll conducted by the Japanese government in 2019, 80.8 percent said the existence of capital punishment "could not be helped."

But Japan has not executed anyone for over two years, possibly reflecting the retrial of former death row inmate Iwao Hakamata, 88, who was acquitted in September.

Marazziti said Hakamata's case demonstrates it is impossible to create a perfect legal system that always convicts the guilty, noting that life once taken cannot be returned.

"We are humans, we tend to perfection but perfection is only natural to God. And then since we are imperfect, it is better that we do not create anything that is irreversible," said Marazziti, a spokesman for the Rome-based Catholic nongovernmental organization Community of Sant'Egidio.

Marazziti said laws should not be made based on public opinion and that leaders need to take charge in moving against the death penalty.

"Japanese people trust institutions, and the government, and authority," he said. If the Diet abolishes the death penalty, the public "may not understand completely at the beginning, but they trust and they say, if they did it, there must be a good reason," said Marazziti.

But he acknowledged that each country will have a different path toward doing away with the death penalty and suggested that Japan could first impose a moratorium as the government studies the issue further and its penal system in general.

Referring to the rare absence of executions in Japan since July 2022, he said, "I'm hopeful that this can help Japan to discover a new culture of life that helps people also to feel more confident that the state protects everyone (while) always respecting life."