opinion

Measures would violate rights accord, so Panama threatens to withdraw from treaty

Panama should withdraw a proposal that would authorize lengthy prison terms and potentially the death penalty for children under 18, Human Rights Watch said in a July 23 letter to President Mireya Moscoso Rodríguez.

Panama's minister of justice, Arnulfo Escalona Ávila, suggested that Panama would withdraw from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits capital punishment and life imprisonment without possibility of release for those under age 18 at the time of their crimes, in order to go forward with the proposal. If Panama did so, it would be the first country to withdraw as a party to the convention, which is the most widely ratified treaty in the world.

"It is unacceptable under any circumstances for Panama to remove fundamental protections from its children," said Michael Bochenek, counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. "What's all the more repugnant is that the government is considering doing so as a matter of political expediency."

Panama is the latest of several Central American countries to adopt or propose harsh measures, often known as the mano dura (firm hand) approach, to combat youth violence. In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, all of which have enacted anti-gang legislation in the last two years, such measures have given police overly broad powers to detain youths based on appearance or association and have exacerbated prison overcrowding. Earlier this year, the Committee on the Rights of the Child called on El Salvador to repeal its anti-gang legislation, saying that it led to police abuses.

Because most crimes are committed by adults, governments adopt mano dura initiatives more for their popular appeal than their likely impact on the crime rate. As Panama itself reported to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in December, "Statistics compiled over a 10-year period show that juvenile delinquency is not a major problem, because the majority of crimes are committed by adults. Juveniles are more frequently implicated in crimes against property and minor offenses or misdemeanors."

International standards recognize that children are entitled to special care and protection because they are still developing physically, mentally and emotionally. These standards call on states to develop specialized laws, procedures, authorities and institutions for handling the cases of children in conflict with the law. In particular, the imprisonment of a child should always be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.

Legislation to authorize the death penalty for juvenile offenders would violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that "[n]either capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offenses committed by persons below 18 years of age." It would also violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the American Convention on Human Rights.


Editor's note: As it was introduced in the Legislative Assembly, minors would have been facing 20-year maximum prison sentences from crimes ranging from murder to drug possession. However, the legislature cut that maximum down to 10 years in the debating process and ultimately rejected the proposal altogether. As this issue was uploaded the administration's proposal for an anti-gang law modeled on legislation in El Salvador and Honduras --- among other things by providing long prison sentences for having certain tattoos --- was still pending. The PRD has announced that when the next legislature takes office in September all of the recent or pending anti-crime legislation will be reviewed and if any parts of it get passed some of those laws may be repealed.




Also in this section:
Jackson, The fundamental issue
Obama, America's true genius
Weisbrot, WTO deal won't boost development
Mbeki, About Aristide
Powell, Aid to Haiti
Abu-Jamal, Black August
Greenpeace, WTO deal no victory for multilateralism
Human Rights Watch, Mireya's hard hand

Back to top

Panama Information, Hotels of Panama - Executive Hotel
Panama Information, Real Estate in Las Cumbres - Villa Concordia
Panama Information - Online guide to information about Panama - www.panama-information.executivehotel-panama.com
Panama Tourism - Online info for the Tourist Panama - www.travel-to-panama.com
Panama Pictures - Collection of pictures of Panama - www.panama-pictures.com