17/04/2015 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC), general rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, has welcomed yesterday’s very clearvote in the Nebraska Legislature in favour of replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment for first-degree murder.
“The death penalty is fundamentally at odds with the values of the Council of Europe, with which the United States has observer status. I wish to commend Nebraska’s lawmakers and would urge them to maintain their firm stance against the death penalty so that the bill can be passed, despite Governor Pete Ricketts’s plans to veto it.”
“I am, however, extremely shocked at some recent decisions taken by certain states in the US in response to the shortage of lethal injection drugs. In Utah, for example, we have seen the reinstatement of the firing squad, in Tennessee, the reintroduction of the electric chair and in Oklahoma, the possibility for death-row inmates to be executed using nitrogen gas.”
“All the more reason, then, for me to commend those Nebraska lawmakers who have opted for the only solution that respects human life and dignity, namely de jure abolition of the death penalty. I can only urge the other states to follow their example.”