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The President of Guatemala, the curator Alejandro Giammattei, I called today to Congress to reactivate the death penalty to face criminality, one day after the murder of a young girl in a municipality in the north of the country, when the death penalty is inapplicable by constitutional decision.
“I call on Congress to reassess the application of the death penalty and that it can be applied in cases as serious as those recently committed against children and women,” he wrote. Giammattei on Twitter.
“I ask the Congress of the Republic that our hand does not shake to face the criminals; if the death penalty is necessary, let them do it, ”the president added to reporters during a tour in the northeast of the country.
The leader He stressed that “crimes against children should be paid with the life of the criminal”, according to the AFP news agency.
The body of eight-year-old Sharon Figueroa was found yesterday in the northern municipality of Melchor of Mencos, border with Belize, a day after her disappearance, which added to an increase in cases of violence against women and prompted messages of outrage and calls to enforce the Capital punishment.
However, human rights lawyer Jordn Rodas explained that the request for Giammattei is a “populist” reaction, because the Constitutional Court (CC), the highest judicial body in the country, has already declared the death penalty inapplicable in Guatemala.
“It is a populist response to a serious problem of violence which cannot be solved with this type of measure,” Rodas said, and urged the president to address “the underlying problems” to eradicate the violence.
Article 18 of the Guatemalan Constitution establishes the death penalty for certain crimes. However, since 2000, there has been a legal vacuum due to the fact that then-President Alfonso Portillo repealed Legislative Assembly Decree 159 which left the current Guatemalan president. the power to grant pardon or to commute the death penalty.
Subsequently, in October 2017, the CC rendered a judgment annulling the application of the death penalty for those guilty of parricide, extrajudicial execution, kidnapping, enforced disappearance and for the death of the president or vice -President of the Republic, and of the other State.
The court argued that the imposition of the death penalty, which was last applied more than two decades ago by lethal injection, violated the principles enshrined in the Constitution and in international treaties, in particular the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José).
The decision was deemed controversial by some sectors who argue that the abolition of the death penalty in Guatemala corresponds exclusively to the Congress of the Republic.
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