14/06/2018 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Yves Cruchten (Luxembourg, SOC), rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the abolition of the death penalty, has commended the signing – by the Palestinian Authority on 6 June – of the 1989 Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
“The Second Optional Protocol provides for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, even for the most serious crimes or in wartime. I welcome its signature as a step in the right direction, in line with the commitments that the Palestinian National Council accepted when it obtained Partner for Democracy status with the Assembly in 2011,” he said.
“Legislative measures are needed to guarantee compliance with the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, and new death sentences should be not handed down before the relevant criminal legislation has been amended. Once again, I call on the Palestinian authorities to introduce without delay a moratorium on all executions in the Gaza strip”, added the rapporteur.