{"id":2001,"date":"2017-08-09T19:07:12","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T19:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-death-penalty-worldwide.pantheonsite.io\/benin-abolished-death-penalty-in-2016-but-14-prisoners-remain-on-death-row\/"},"modified":"2020-06-04T10:16:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T10:16:29","slug":"benin-abolished-death-penalty-in-2016-but-14-prisoners-remain-on-death-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/benin-abolished-death-penalty-in-2016-but-14-prisoners-remain-on-death-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Benin Abolished Death Penalty in 2016, but 14 Prisoners Remain on Death Row"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January 2016, the Constitutional Court of Benin effectively abolished the death penalty in a\u00a0ruling<\/a>\u00a0that stated that \u201cno one can now be sentenced to capital punishment.\u201d\u00a0 Prior to this ruling, in 2013, the National Assembly\u00a0repealed<\/a>\u00a0death penalty provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code.\u00a0 Currently, a bill is pending in the National Assembly that seeks to completely remove death penalty provisions in the Criminal Code.<\/p>\n

The Constitutional Court\u2019s ruling is the latest development in a series of events leading to abolition of the death penalty in this West African\u00a0country.\u00a0 The last known execution in\u00a0Benin\u00a0was carried out in 1987<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the last death sentence was\u00a0handed down in 2010<\/a>.\u00a0 In 2012, the country signed on to the\u00a0Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights<\/a>,\u00a0committing to immediately cease applying capital punishment and to fully abolish the death penalty in law in the near future.<\/p>\n

Despite these reforms, 14 prisoners\u00a0remain under sentence of death<\/a>.\u00a0And while\u00a0Benin has\u00a0committed\u00a0not to execute these prisoners, their sentences have not been commuted.\u00a0 The prisoners\u00a0include<\/a>\u00a010 Beninese, two Nigerians, one Togolese and one Ivorian. In 2016, Amnesty International visited the prison where these prisoners are still being held and\u00a0described substandard conditions<\/a>.\u00a0 The prisoners researchers talked to have lived for decades under the constant fear of death.\u00a0At least three prisoners have died from serious illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis while on death row.<\/p>\n

According to Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), \u201c[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.\u201d\u00a0 In the last 20 years, jurisprudence has developed in support of the idea that continued incarceration on death row (also known as “death row phenomenon<\/a>“) constitutes cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.\u00a0 In Pratt v. Morgan, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council determined that a five–year wait between conviction and execution presumptively cruel and\u00a0inhuman punishment<\/a>.\u00a0 Courts in Canada and Uganda have reached similar conclusions.\u00a0 In the United States, the issue has not yet reached the Supreme Court; however, two justices have voiced their support for recognizing the phenomenon as a violation of fundamental rights.<\/p>\n

Amnesty has\u00a0urged authorities<\/a>\u00a0in Benin to commute the death sentences of the 14 prisoners remaining on death row in order to comply with the country\u2019s international obligations.\u00a0Noting that\u00a0104 countries worldwide have abolished the death penalty,\u00a0Amnesty has urged\u00a0Benin, as a member of this global majority, to completely eliminate any remnants of the old death penalty system and to commute the sentences of these men who have suffered for decades under the old regime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January 2016, the Constitutional Court of Benin effectively abolished the death penalty in a\u00a0ruling\u00a0that stated that \u201cno one can now be sentenced to capital punishment.\u201d\u00a0 Prior to this ruling, in 2013, the National Assembly\u00a0repealed\u00a0death penalty provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code.\u00a0 Currently, a bill is pending in the National Assembly that seeks to completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,74,99],"tags":[103,100],"class_list":["post-2001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abolition-fr","category-news-fr","category-international-legal-issues-fr","tag-abolition-fr","tag-international-legal-issues-fr"],"better_featured_image":{"id":943,"alt_text":"alt=\"\"","caption":"Photo by orangesparrow","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1256,"height":942,"file":"2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice.jpg","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-300x225.jpg","width":300,"height":225,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-300x225.jpg"},"large":{"file":"orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-1024x768.jpg","width":1024,"height":768,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-1024x768.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-768x576.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice-768x576.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":1995,"source_url":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/orangesparrow_104_365-a-little-justice.jpg"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"external_author":"Jenna Kyle","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2011,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/2011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpw.lawschool.cornell.edu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}