Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

APRIL 15, 2002

GERMANY: Hesse FDP Would Remove Death Penalty Provision

Hesse's branch of the Free Democratic Party on Monday advocated stripping from the state constitution a relic provision allowing use of the death penalty as punishment for particularly severe crimes.

 In Germany, federal law overrules state law, and does not allow for use of the death penalty. Therefore, any death sentence handed down here would certainly have been appealed and overturned. But the chairman of the FDP group in Hesse's parliament, J�rg-Uwe Hahn, called the death penalty provision, Article 121, an "unallowable component" of the state's constitution that should be "wiped out as quickly as possible."

 Article 121 was incorporated into the state's constitution in 1946. The FDP would like a motion to strike the provision put to a citizen vote, along with several other amendment proposals agreed upon in principle by the FDP's coalition partner, the Christian Democratic Union, and the opposition Social Democratic Party and Alliance 90/The Greens. The Christian Democrats see the FDP proposal as unnecessary, saying the constitution contains numerous other outdated provisions that should be collectively removed.