Is the life sentence for rapists and murderers of children proposed by Duque viable?
Since 2008 the same proposal has been made but has not been successful at the time of approval
The current president Ivan Duque proposed in the first meeting of local leaders, organized by Fedemunicipios, that for the regional elections of 2019 a referendum is promoted in which once and for all the life imprisonment for rapists and murderers of children will be imposed.
Leer en español: ¿Es viable la cadena perpetua para violadores y asesinos de niños propuesta por Duque?
Quiero invitarlos a que construyamos una propuesta para que, como sociedad, al unísono, en el proceso electoral del 2019 podamos ir como ciudadanos a las urnas y votar el referendo para que exista cadena perpetua para violadores y asesinos de niños en Colombia. @Fedemunicipios pic.twitter.com/4A1OdpU56O
— Iván Duque (@IvanDuque) 12 de julio de 2018
What happened in the past with this proposal?
The outrage that the murders of Yuliana Samboní have provoked in the Colombians, at the hands of Rafael Uribe Noguera and Luis Santiago Pelayo, the 11-month-old baby raped and murdered by his father in Chía, Cundinamarca, has opened the debate on the implementation of life imprisonment for rapists and murderers of children. However, its approval has not been successful.
Since 2008, the late senator, Gilma Jiménez and the main promoter of this proposal, has proposed to the Congress of the Republic to approve the convening of a referendum – a citizen participation mechanism to submit to a popular vote the approval and implementation of a given Bill – to make effective your proposal. At that time, the Constitutional Court declared the project unconstitutional due to having defects of form, which are irregularities that are incurred during the process that precedes the promulgation of the law and that has been established by the constituent, according to Sentence 508 of 2002 of the Constitutional Court.
Despite being denied his initiative, Jiménez, she tried again with a new initiative with the same objective: life imprisonment for rapists and murderers of children. Although the Senate approved it, the House of Representatives filed it, which meant that it could not be advanced in its future implementation.
Years later and after the death of Gilma Jiménez, her daughter Yohanna Salamanca Jiménez along with the journalist Guillermo Prieto Larotta, "Pirry", and the Spanish journalist Salud Hernández, were in charge of promoting a collection of signatures. The objective is to ask Congress once again to call a referendum. However, the support of the Colombians was not enough and for that reason, the signatures necessary to achieve the objective with the Senate were not reached.
Is life imprisonment the solution?
In an interview with the magazine Semana, Martha Casas , an expert in criminal law at the Universidad Libre said that the solution is not life imprisonment, since "in prisons there are unconstitutional states of affairs due to overcrowding, in addition, this is a process that it has been decided by the jurisdiction, it has been decided by important jurists insofar as the first thing before issuing a life sentence is to modify the political constitution because in Colombia there is a prohibition of life imprisonment ".
The referendum proposed by Iván Duque to make life imprisonment for rapists and murderers of children a reality will have to be approved by Congress and the Constitutional Court. Finally, Colombians will be the ones who decide whether to start or not.
Latin American Post I Edwin Guerrero Nova
Translated from: 'Cadena perpetua para violadores y asesinos de niños: ¿Es viable la propuesta de Duque?'
