Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Add "Honour" Killing to the Criminal Code?

Not directly.

The fuss over adding honour killing as a separate offence to the Code misses a point -- murder is already illegal.

What might make sense (I'm not sure it's necessary but I can see the potential) would be to add a provision on sentencing saying that where the motivation of an act in for "honour" then that act ought to be punished in a more severe way.

Remember not all "honour" killing attempts lead to death or even murder charges -- manslaughter and assault can be before the Court.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a frustrating issue that tests my tolerance, but the reality is that we just need to call it what it is: a killing. There is no 'honour' in it.

Mark Richard Francis said...

What makes it subject to more of society's sanction compared to other motives like jealousy, hatred, racism, bigotry or greed?