First modification: 09/05/2021 – 03:55
The Colombian Constitutional Court overturned a reform promoted by President Iván Duque that sought to impose life sentences on those who raped minors. This law caused controversy and was finally invalidated by the highest court in the country. Some experts referred to this as an ineffective law.
The law was an electoral campaign promise and was promulgated by the Colombian president in July 2020, amid strong criticism from the opposition, academics and experts. Several of them appealed this law in the Colombian Constitutional Court, which finally invalidated it. The magistrates of the supreme body of Colombian justice considered that life imprisonment can constitute a cruel punishment, prohibited by international treaties, and that it does not protect minors.
Luisa Gutiérrez Herrera, criminal lawyer and member of the board of directors of the Colombian Criminal Lawyers Association, says that this law is unconstitutional. “One of the fundamental pillars of the penalty is the reintegration of those who have committed punishable behavior, it is the fact that these people have the right to be re-socialized. Sending them to life imprisonment is a way of disregarding the right of that person to their rehabilitation and their reincorporation into society, that is clearly contrary to human dignity ”.
Several voices from the academic world and jurists appealed the law in the constitutional court, arguing that punishing rapists with life imprisonment is not effective in fighting this type of crime.
Gutiérrez also agreed with this argument: “To pretend that by putting the existence of a life sentence in the code we are going to prevent the conduct from being carried out is absurd because what the offender thinks the least about and more this type of people who are ultimately people sick, even if we don’t like to accept it, it is the result of the behavior ”.
“They are not thinking that they are going to condemn them, they are moving away from that type of prevention, they are not aware of what their penalty will be, they are pending of being underage predators. So what has been said by the academy and what has been intended is that public policies be improved and crime is prevented. In fact, if that were useful, we might think that in countries like the United States, where there is the death penalty when one person murders another, murderers would not exist. That is an absurd measure, it is a measure that we have considered politic and populist, “he added.
Judgments are honored. We have to correct the flaws in our society. We will continue our fight for the rights of children and to achieve the maximum exemplary punishment for those who kill and abuse them.
– Iván Duque
(@IvanDuque) September 3, 2021
President Duque indicated that he will abide by the Court’s ruling, but in a harsh criticism against the magistrates, he considers that this ruling privileges the dignity of the rapist and not that of the child.
With this decision, in Colombia life imprisonment for any crime is once again prohibited and the maximum penalty is once again 60 years in prison. More than 15,000 minors were victims of sexual crimes in 2020, about 42 a day, according to the forensic authority.
This article was published originally in RFI
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source https://pledgetimes.com/colombian-court-rules-against-life-imprisonment-for-child-rapists/
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