A BILL PRESENTED BY THE DEPUTIES: DE CATALDO, AGLIETTA, AJELLO, BALDELLI, BOATO, BONINO, CICCIOMESSERE, CRIVELINI, FACCIO, MELEGA, MELLINI, PINTO, RIPPA, ROCCELLA, SCIASCIA, TEODORI, TESSARI ALLESANDRO
Presented March 23, 1981
ABSTRACT: The abolition of life imprisonment and its replacement with thirty years in prison.
(CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES - VIIIth LEGISLATURE - BILLS AND REPORTS - NO. 2463)
FELLOW DEPUTIES! -- The collection of signatures for the abrogation of life imprisonment by the Radical Party and the coming referendum concerning it make it urgent to modify the penal law on this point thus responding to a present need which has always been deeply felt but never realised to eliminate from our penal code a sanction which is certainly of dubious constitutionality at least and contrary to our country's juridical civilisation.
Already during the work of the Constituent Assembly many authoritative voices were raised against the sentence of life imprisonment which the Hon. Mr. Togliatti said was just as inhuman as the death sentence. Subsequently, ever wider circles of opinion and the overwhelming majority of jurists spoke against keeping a perpetual penalty on our legislative books. The judiciary too had oscillated with regard to the constitutionality of par. 2 of article 17 of the penal code. During the Fifth Legislature, when the reform of the penal code was being discussed, the 2nd Senate Commission was almost unanimous in recommending the suppression of life imprisonment. Senators of almost all political sides (Tropeano, Follieri, Zuccalà, Terracini, Corrao) reached such a conclusion. The government itself, with Under-secretary Pennacchini as its spokesman, textually affirmed that "... the deterrent power of life imprisonment, which according to some would make its abrogation inadvisable, is also inherent in the penalty of
30 to 40 years which would replace it...".
Approved by the Senate, the reform bill lapsed due to the end of the Fifth Legislature.
In the Sixth Legislature the reform had the same fate. Although approved by the Senate, it did not succeed in becoming the law of the country because of an early dissolution of the Parliament.
Therefore it seems to us, without in any way wanting to annul article 75 of the Constitution, that in a situation such as we have described made even more urgent by hundreds of thousands of signatures, Parliament has the duty to intervene without delay to make the law conform to the popular will.
This is the sense of the present bill which we are presenting for consideration and approval by the Chamber of Deputies.
Fellow deputies! Writing of his life term in Santo Stefano [prison], Luigi Settembrini wrote: "With life imprisonment you deprive a man of the consolation of hope; kill him rather, but do not leave him with a hopeless existence because you would only inflame him more, you would make him more ferocious than a wild beast, more vicious". A few days ago in the United States a man condemned to death opposed this sentence being commuted into life in prison. He was executed according to his desire rather than spend his life in prison!
BILL OF LAW
ART.1
Article 17 of the penal code is replaced by the following:
Art.17 - (Principal penalties. Types). -- The principle penalties established for crimes are :
1) Imprisonment;
2) Fines.
The principal penalties established for infringements are:
a) Arrest;
b) Fines.
ART.2
Article 18 of the penal code is replaced by the following:
Art.18 - (Denomination and classification of the principal penalties). -- Under the denomination of the penalties of detention or restricted personal liberty the law understands: imprisonment and arrest.
Under the denomination of pecuniary penalties the law understands fines.
ART.3
Article 22 of the penal code is abrogated.
ART.4
For crimes contemplated in articles 241, 242, 243, 244, 247, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 276, 280, 284, 285, 286, 287, 289-bis, 295, 422, 438, 439, 576, 577, 630 of the penal code, the penalty of life imprisonment is replaced with thirty years in prison.
