Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-045"
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"en.20070131.15.3-045"2
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"Madam President, the political, religious and legal debate on whether or not to apply the death penalty has been under way for decades and will continue into the future. The famous writer Albert Camus spoke out against it in his time, and Robert Badinter, a former French Justice Minister, led a legal battle at European level for many years. As a rule, strong ethical arguments are adduced in heated debates of this nature, and references are made to the inalienable right to life. Horrifying statistics about the number of sentences carried out in countries such as China or India are also quoted. The largest democracy in the world, the United States, is placed in the dock. Catholics opposed to the death penalty and those in favour of it contrive to base entirely contradictory arguments on the same sources, namely the Gospels, the Catechism and Papal encyclicals. It is very difficult to justify to the families and loved ones of people, often children, who have been cruelly murdered that the death penalty should not be applied to those responsible for the crimes. At such times, people’s emotions incline them to desire a very different outcome.
I hail from a country that suffered under the iron rule of Hitler’s totalitarian Nazi regime and later under Soviet Communism. I would like to point out that use of the death penalty is a key feature of each and every dictatorship. When I look back at events in my country, Poland, during the period to which I previously referred, I see how whole legions of Poland’s finest sons and daughters were murdered, following sentences handed down by Communist kangaroo courts. Having considered both sides of the argument concerning the death penalty, I am bound to say that its abolition is essential in order to curb the madness of fanatics prepared to use the legal system to eliminate their opponents. The most the fellow citizens of these murdered heroes can do years later, once freedom has been restored, is to put up monuments in their honour.
This is what I have learnt from the history of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations and also of my own. Only one of the 1 500 death sentences carried out in Poland during the Stalinist period involved a common criminal. The price of restricting the actions of dictators of various political hues may well be that, instead of being guillotined, offenders who deserve this ultimate punishment will have to spend the rest of their lives in prison, without the opportunity of parole. If that is the case, I believe it is a price worth paying, however painful it may be to do so."@en1
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