Today's Date:

Death Penalty

Message from Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic, read by Nicole Guedj, Minister of State for victims' rights, attached to the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, to the second World Congress against the death penalty

Montreal, October 6, 2004

Ladies and gentlemen,

You have gathered here in Montreal today in the name of a conviction and a commitment. France shares this conviction and commitment. Human life is inviolable and sacred. In no case can killing be an act of justice.

Each day, you are taking this fight to your parliaments and to your associations, taking it to your fellow citizens and the peoples of the world to achieve the universal abolition of the death penalty. France shares this fight.

The presence of so many of you here, on the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty, along with your steadfast struggle, testify to the rejection of fear and the spirit of revenge, and to the choice of justice and humanism.

Those in favour of the death penalty use considerations of equity and effectiveness in their attempt to legitimize it. There's no equity or effectiveness when it comes to the death penalty. There is no such thing as infallible justice and every execution could kill an innocent. Capital punishment does not remedy the harm done to victims any more than it makes society safer.

The death penalty is also intrinsically unfair. The defence arguments and means of appeal run out faster for the poor and minorities than for the rich.

The abolition of the death penalty is part of the progress of civilization. The combat started in the Age of Enlightenment, with Beccaria who saw in the death penalty the "end of the social contract". The combat has been going on for more than two centuries now. The cause was taken up by Condorcet, Victor Hugo, Aristide Briand and Albert Camus. It is now up to us to carry it forward today.

As of now, half the member States of the United Nations have taken this step. France did so in 1981, at the behest of President François Mitterrand. Our country also undertook the necessary procedures to ratify the Second Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The European Union has included the principle of abolition in its Charter of Fundamental Rights. About forty other countries have stopped applying the death penalty. The International Criminal Court and other international courts have rejected it.

But we can also see what remains to be done. Seventy-eight countries have maintained the death penalty and continue to apply it. Several countries have resumed executions after observing a moratorium.

I am making a fresh call today for an immediate and general moratorium on all executions, the first step towards universal abolition.

There are still countries where the death penalty is applied to children, teenagers and people with mental deficiencies. Let us ask these countries to stop right now. Such executions are an outrage to our consciences and there can be no debate about the fact that they are the negation of the very idea of justice.

As the world seems to be swept up in a dizzying spiral of violence, let us show our confidence in the future. Let us make a resolute choice for education and prevention. Let us show by further progress in justice and the law that we intend to fight steadfastly against contemporary scourges with the weapons of freedom and humanism.

This is the meaning of your fight and you can count on France's determination to play her full role in this struggle.

Thank you./.