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SNS Wants to Talk with EU Parties about Re-introducing Death Penalty
Monday 19 April 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, April 19 (TASR) - The Slovak National Party (SNS) realises that Slovakia can't re-introduce capital punishment at the national level, as it's forbidden to do so by the European Convention on Human Rights, which has precedence over national laws, SNS head Jan Slota told TASR at a conference devoted to this issue on Monday.
SNS wants therefore to talk with political parties in the EU that want to have the death penalty introduced at the European level, said Slota, who deems the abolition of capital punishment in former Czechoslovakia in 1990 (shortly following the Velvet Revolution) as premature.
"It wasn't SNS that begun the debate (on the topic) in the EU; the discussion began in the Italian and Portuguese parliaments, and I think that in the French and Belgian Parliament as well," said Slota.
Slota and his party mate Rudolf Pucik, chairman of the Parliamentary Defence and Security Committee, claimed that there are several MPs from other parliamentary parties that would also back the reintroduction of capital punishment if it wasn't for the Europe-wide ban.
Slota noted that surveys reveal that as much as 60 percent of Slovaks support capital punishment for brutal murders. "We consider humanity and democracy towards murderers, often they're pedophiles who murder the kids ... and we don't take victims into account. And victims in this case aren't only the actual victims of the murders but also their families, with parents often ending up in a mental hospital. Meanwhile, the murderers don't fear at all, they're used to prison, as they live in clover there," said Slota.
At the same time, he stressed that supreme punishment should be granted only in cases that are open-and-shut murders, and the condemned must not be mentally ill or juvenile.
Opposition Christian Democrats (KDH) chair and former eurocommissioner Jan Figel later told TASR that the discussion in re-introduction of death penalty has no sense. "Opening the issue means not to understand that fundamental to the European idea is dignity of human beings, which concerns everybody, even convicts," said Figel.
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