Central African Republic abolishes death penalty

Source: Vatican News

The Central African Republic is the latest country in the world to abolish the death penalty. Chad did so in 2020, and Sierra Leone in 2021.

The National Assembly of the Central African Republic voted on Friday to end capital punishment with a law passed by acclamation which must now be promulgated by President Faustin Archange Touadéra.

The last official execution in the Central African Republic took place in 1981. In the intervening period, the justice system has no longer requested the death penalty against a convicted person, though the possibility of capital punishment remained. The mainly symbolic measure is unlikely to fundamentally change the security situation in the country, which is plagued by violence and fighting between rebel groups and the national army, supported by Russian mercenaries. But human rights defenders say the abolition of the death penalty is a positive signal.

Since the reform instituted by Pope Francis in 2018, the Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns the use of the death penalty. It states that "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person", even in the case of a very serious crime.

At the same time, "more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption."

This new formulation regarding the death penalty, approved by Pope Francis, came into effect on 1 August 2018.

The Catechism urges the Church to "work with determination for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide."

See the new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty here: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802a.html

Read Amnesty's latest report on the death penalty worldwide: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/5418/2022/en/