House committee approves law to scrap death penalty

Parliament�s Administration and Justice Committee on Monday approved a draft law aimed at scrapping the death penalty for deliberate homicide.

Legal sources expressed relief at the measure, which is an important step toward improving the country�s human rights situation. The sources said that scrapping the controversial law gives courts added freedom to issue sentences according to both their humanitarian and judicial principles.

Meanwhile, some lawyers said that they would not rest until the death penalty was scrapped for all homicide cases, whether premeditated or not.

In 1994, Parliament issued a law calling for the death sentence to be applied to the perpetuator of a deliberate homicide. This is based on articles 547 and 548 of the Criminal Justice Code. Courts were banned from allowing leniency towards the accused, regardless of the circumstances that prompted the crime.

However, since the law was passed, no death sentence has been implemented for deliberate homicide cases.

When the draft law is passed by the full House, it will spare the lives of three criminals on death row.

The same sources said that the authorities were reluctant to carry out any of the death sentences handed down by local courts to allow convicts to benefit from Monday�s measure.

The committee convened on Monday under the chairmanship of Akkar MP Mikhael Daher. The session was attended by Social Affairs Minister Assad Diab, several MPs, and Michel Lian and George Mourani, who head the Beirut and North Lebanon Bar Associations, respectively.

�We have scrapped the death sentence for deliberate homicide cases and we shall begin to allow the perpetrators of deliberate crimes to benefit from alleviating circumstances after they were denied this privilege under the law,� Daher said. �Once the amendment goes through Parliament, no perpetrator of political homicides will be sentenced to death.�

The committee also discussed �ways to provide protection to juvenile delinquents, which is very important these days,� Daher said, �and endorsed a ban on child labor which conforms with international regulations.�

Meanwhile, the National Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty on Monday provided Daher with the result of a referendum on capital punishment, which saw the group poll MPs.

Asked whether they favored scrapping the death penalty, 81 out of 90 MPs polled, or 90 percent, answered yes.