Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-036"
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"en.20070131.15.3-036"2
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".
Madam President, countries where capital punishment still exists do not deserve to be part of the civilised world, no matter whether these countries are Islamic, where adulterous women are stoned, the America of Bush, India, the world’s largest democracy, or Communist China. I will therefore not hesitate to back the plea for a worldwide moratorium. One judicial error, the life of one innocent, is enough to write capital punishment off as barbaric. Allow me, though, to add two observations.
Respect for life should not stop a constitutional state from giving serious offenders effective and irreducible penalties of 30 years, or lifelong imprisonment for that matter. This condition must, and indeed can, underpin the public’s consensus against the death penalty. This consensus will not come about unless our citizens, who are increasingly faced with the most brutal forms of crime, add their voice to the worldwide abolition of capital punishment.
Secondly, some opponents of capital punishment should display a certain degree of consistency. For example, on a recent friendly visit to China, which is a single-party state, the French Socialist Presidential candidate sang the praises of the efficiency of the Chinese justice system. This efficiency involves the families of the thousands of people who have been sentenced to death every year being presented with the bill for the bullets that killed the victims, but Ségolène Royal did not spare a thought for them. After all, they do not bring in the contracts, because the commercial interests of major enterprises in China must be protected, and that is when some European opponents of capital punishment go all quiet all of a sudden. If Europe wants to retain its credibility, it should exert pressure on countries such as China, whatever the political or commercial cost."@en1
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