Commutation of the Death Sentence for Drugs Crimes on Parliament’s Table

The final draft bill on the “Commutation of the Death Sentence for those Convicted of Drugs Crimes” will be presented to the Parliament soon.

According to Jalal Rahim Jahan Abadi, the chairman of the Parliamentary Legal and Judicial Commission, alternative to death sentences for drugs cases is in working agenda of the Commission, and soon will be proposed in the open session of the Parliament.
The emergency draft bill on alternative to death sentence punishment for drug related criminals was ratified in the Parliament in late December last year.
Now after the passage of nearly six months since the approval of the generalities of this draft, we must see where ultimately will the Parliaments debates lead to and what decision have the Baharestan tenants taken regarding the details of the draft and how to prevent the negative consequences of it.

According to Rahimi’s announcement, in the event that this bill is approved as finalized, then executions will only take place for armed drugs traffickers and gangs, and those that carry small amounts of drugs or those who under particular circumstances have been forced to traffick drugs will either be sentenced to life or hard labour.
It was in the second quarter of 2016 when 100 members of Parliament drafted a bill with the aim of amending the intensified fight against drugs act and reduction of the death sentence for drugs traffickers, which had been suspended from the previous Parliament, which they once again put into motion. In this draft bill alternative to death sentence punishments have been considered for drugs related criminals in which the death sentence is only issued for drugs traffickers who commit their crime with weapons, and the drug dealers or carriers will be sentenced to long term imprisonment instead of the death sentence.

In the event that according to the amended draft to the Fight against Drugs Act the death sentence will be lifted from small dealers and carriers, according to this draft in cases where the criminal or at least one of the accessories at the time of the committing of the crime is carrying a firearm or has pulled out a firearm or cold weapon or in cases where the perpetrator according to Article 18 of this Act or Article 130 of the Islamic Criminal Code, is the ringleader of the organized criminal gang or in cases where the perpetrator has an execution or 10 year imprisonment criminal record or prior to that has spent at least 5 years in prison for crimes committed in relation to the subject of the Fight Against Drugs Act, or is involved in the production or smuggling of the contents of Article 8 of this Act, the perpetrator will be recognised as a “Corruptor of the Earth”.

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Photo: donya-e-hoghough