(CNN English) — Members of the National Assembly on Tuesday passed a legal reform that imposes life imprisonment on those who commit hate crimes.
The reform of article 37 of Nicaragua’s constitution was approved by the favorable vote of 70 Deputies of the Sandinista bench, 15 votes against opposition deputies and 3 abstentions.
‘Exceptionally, the re-reviewable life imprisonment for a person convicted of serious crimes shall be imposed when circumstances of hatred, cruel, degrading, humiliating and inhumane occur which, because of its impact, cause shock, rejection, outrage, repugnance in the national community’ establishes the reform of the constitutional article read by Mr Wilfredo Navarro of the Sandinista bench before its approval.
Official banking initiative
The initiative had been presented on 22 October by 69 members of the official seat. The Sandinista Ms. María Auxiliadora Martínez expressed in plenary that reform is due to the need to adapt the constitutional text to social reality – according to her – in the face of the popular cry of incorporating an exceptional penalty for those responsible for committing heinous crimes.
With the justification of punishing an appalling crime against two girls in Mulukuku Municipality on 12 September, three days later President Daniel Ortega proposed the imposition of a life sentence on those who commit heinous crimes. During his speech he included as perpetrators of hate crimes opponents of his government.
“They want to continue committing murders, planting bombs, causing destruction, more destruction than they caused in April 2018,” President Ortega said on September 15. He said this during the event in greeting the 199th anniversary of the Independence of Central America. Always in reference to the opposition, Ortega noted: “They are not Nicaraguans, they are children of the devil and they are full of hatred, full of hatred are”.
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