05/06/2019 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Titus Corlăţean (Romania, SOC), General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, has welcomed the decision of the state of New Hampshire in the United States to abolish the death penalty in the state.
“I warmly welcome the decisions of the New Hampshire House and Senate to override the state governor’s veto on the bill abolishing the death penalty, which shows lawmakers’ determination to combat the capital sentence. New Hampshire becomes the 21st state to abolish the death penalty de jure in the United States and joins the growing trend to eliminate this sentence in the country and in the world,” he said.
“This decision is in line with our shared values, as spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international treaties,” he added.
“The death penalty is always a cruel and inhuman punishment, whatever the crime, and it should no longer be applied in democratic states that respect human rights. I call on the authorities of the United States, an observer state at the Council of Europe, to reassess at political level the possibility of doing away entirely with this sentence, in order to abolish it de jure or de facto in those states where it is still applied, or whose law still permits its use,” the rapporteur concluded.
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On 30 May, the Senate of the state of New Hampshire repealed its death penalty, overriding by a two-thirds majority the veto by the state’s Governor Chris Sununu. Earlier last week, the New Hampshire House had overridden the veto by the same majority.