[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 31



GLOBAL:

"The Second Death of the Death Penalty"


The 2nd death of the death penalty is programmed in the near future, when
the parliament meeting at Versailles writes its abolition into the stone
of the Constitution, a gesture with high symbolic value wished for by
Jacques Chirac in the twilight of his political life.

The land of Voltaire, Hugo and Camus, which was long in abolishing the
death penalty, now wants to be in the forefront of this great cause, whose
partisans keep gaining ground throughout the world.

France, which will host the world congress against the death penalty from
February 1st to 3rd, is an excellent observation post for this historic
evolution. In 1981, when it abolished capital punishment, it was the only
Western European democracy still applying it. Today, in all Europe, only
Belarus is still resisting. A quarter of a century ago, France was the
36th country to give it up, while today, some 130 States are abolitionist,
de jure or de facto.

Jacques Chirac, who wants to leave for history the image of a convinced
abolitionist, for a long time shilly-shallied. Candidate for president in
1981, he only spoke out against capital punishment at the last minute. As
late as February 1981, he was of the opinion to let the French decide by
referendum, which, on such a question, involved revising the Constitution.
In other words, by letting the people speak this way, the guillotine would
still have had a long life ahead. For the great majority of the French
were against its disappearance.

By an irony of history, it is a penitent who, in a few days, will present,
in the name of the government, the bill desired by Jacques Chirac: Pascal
Clment, Minister of Justice, who long resisted abolition. En June 1981, as
a modest UDF legislator from the Loire area, he defended in the National
Assembly the prior question, whose adoption would have cut short the
debate wished for by Franois Mitterrand. "Society," Mr. Clment then
claimed, "has the right to give death to defend itself."

Otherwise, he pleaded, one must be logical: "Let's be pacifists and refuse
to arm our soldiers." To which Robert Badinter, the Minister of Justice at
the time, replied that, at this solemn moment, "a certain concept of man
and of the society" was involved.

It is this concept of man that Jacques Chirac has favored in deciding to
write into the Constitution the principle that "no one can be sentenced to
death." Like the President of the Republic, like the Minister of Justice,
French society has greatly evolved in 25 years. Mostly in favor of the
death penalty when it was abolished - by 60% - it now says it is opposed
to its reestablishment, by 52%, according to a TNS-Sofres poll taken in
September 2006.

Alone of all the presidential candidates, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Philippe
de Villiers still talk about rehabilitating it. And only 47 legislators
from the majority party were willing, in April 2004, to sign a bill
proposing to reestablish the death penalty for those committing terrorist
acts, among them Alain Marleix, national secretary of the UMP (Chiracs
party), in charge of choosing candidates for the legislative elections.

Certain abolitionists are only half abolitionists. Abolitionists of
course, except for: terrorists, child rapists, murderers of old ladies or
policemen, depending on the fears of the moment. For principled
abolitionists, on the contrary, it is exactly when it faces terrorists, or
blind violence, that a democracy best defends its values by refusing an
eye for an eye.

In spite of people like Le Pen, de Villiers or Marleix, the death penalty
is now seen by the French as contrary to the principles of the Republic.
What is the cause of their support for this ethic of justice? Sociologist
Raymond Boudon (in his book Renewing Democracy, published by Odile Jacob
in 2006), sees it as a victory for what he calls, referring to Max Weber,
"common sense." Just as democracy imposed itself in France as the most
rational method of government, so the wisdom of the citizens may have
instructed them against the death penalty, which seems to them today
neither dissuasive nor moral.

In "Against the Death Penalty" (Fayard 2006), Robert Badinter says he too
is convinced that the death penalty is "called upon to disappear from this
world." Under the influence of jurists who conform to the principles of
the United Nations, neither the International Penal Court nor the
jurisdictions created after the genocides in the ex-Yugoslavia, Ruanda or
Cambodia can send a man to the gallows. One can measure the distance
traveled since the Nuremberg trials. In the name of this international
morality, the United Nations and the Council of Europe today invite their
member countries to forbid the reestablishment of the death penalty. Such
is the goal of the "optional protocol... aiming at abolishing the death
penalty." (UN)

And protocol no. 13 of the European Human Rights Convention "relative to
the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances." (Council of
Europe) 2 texts having the value of treaties which France plans to ratify
when it revises its Constitution in February.

Many abolitionists claim to be equally convinced that universal abolition
has a chance of progressing only if it wins out in the United States.
After China, America is the country which carries out the greatest number
of executions in the world. It is also the only great industrialized
country, along with Japan, which still authorizes them.

The abolitionists thus attentively observe the ebb and flow of the death
penalty on the other side of the Atlantic, convinced that, if the United
States gives it up, the contagion effect will be decisive.

2/3 of the Americans remain in spite of all partisans of the supreme
punishment, according to a Gallup poll of October 2006. But the number of
executions is dropping in that country: 53 last year, the lowest figure in
10 years. And the Americans are more and more sensitive to the risks of
judicial error revealed by the generalization of DNA testing.

The road is perhaps still long. But, by revising its Constitution and by
hosting the world congress against the death penalty in Paris, France is
doubtless not unhappy to give a lesson to the one Robert Badinter calls
"Bush the butcher."

(source: Op-Ed; Bertrand Le Gendre, Le Monde (Paris) )