The request was from the Ministry of the Interior and contemplates a minimum sentence of four years for the crime of simple intentional homicide, the same penalty as today for robbery and extortion.
The senators of the ruling party agreed to give rise to the increase in the minimum sentence for homicides simple intentional Uruguay to four years in prison, one of the requests of the Ministry of the Interior for this Accountability as a measure to combat the increase in crimes and homicides in the country.
Although the original proposal of the portfolio he directs Luis Alberto Heber proposed an increase in the minimum sentence from two to six years in prison for this type of crime, the various criticisms of the Power of attorney and the Prosecutor’s Office —among them, those of the prosecutor Juan Gomez, and the indication of the loss of the possibility of carrying out sentences for abbreviated trials led to the initiative proposing to reduce the increase to four years, while maintaining the two years in cases where incomplete self-defense is proven.
According to the Undersecretary of the Interior, Guillermo Maciel, The agreement reached with the ruling party in the Senate maintains, in addition to the abbreviated processes, two other “fundamental” elements: that the convicted can access the early release at two years for good behavior and at redemption of punishment “for work and study” six months before turning four years old.
The arguments of the Ministry of the Interior
“It seeks to legislate to defend society and, in particular, human life, in a way to deter, prevent and repress more severely, in a clear political and legal signal, these situations,” Maciel declared before the members of the Budget Commission integrated with the Treasury on September 13, in defense of the request made by the Ministry.
Another aspect pointed out as an argument for including the request was that the increase in the minimum sentence for homicide achieves “a fair proportionality” regarding minimum sentences of robberies and extortion (also four years), as well as kidnappings (six years), kidnappings (eight years) and rapes (three years). In that sense, Maciel pointed out that “it is in no way justified that a crime where a person’s life is intentionally taken, which is the maximum good protected by our Constitution of the Republicthe penalty is much lower than in other crimes”.
Likewise, the undersecretary indicated that “the least” that the Ministry of the Interior can do is “balance” the “intentional homicide sentencing floor” with that of a robbery. “That is the rationale and, therefore, we are presenting the replacement article with its rationale,” she concluded. Article that was finally accepted by the ruling party in the Upper House.
Source: Ambito
