The Senate votes to create “road homicide” and reopens the talk on minimal penalties | EUROtoday

The Senate authorized, Wednesday March 27 night, the creation of a brand new qualification of“road homicide” for highway accidents, nonetheless clearly broadening the scope of this offense on the initiative of the precise, which additionally tried to reestablish minimal penalties, with out success.

Initially very consensual, the invoice adopted by the National Assembly reopened some partisan debates throughout its examination within the higher home of Parliament.

The textual content aimed to answer a request from victims' associations who now not help the authorized qualification “manslaughter” within the case of highway deaths, by changing it with the primarily symbolic notion of“road homicide” when a number of aggravating circumstances exist, similar to rushing or drug use.

“It is our duty that our law does not aggravate the suffering of victims through its words”supported the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti.

The senatorial proper, the primary pressure within the Hemicycle, has nevertheless largely reworked the textual content by integrating into this new identify “all attacks on persons committed by a driver”, together with for instance in circumstances of fatigue whereas driving. Without returning, nevertheless, to the differentiation of the penalties incurred.

“We cannot say that there are first class victims and second class victims”insisted the rapporteur (Les Républicains) Francis Szpiner.

Minimum sentences, a delicate topic

This gadget voted by the Senate offended the Minister of Justice and the left. “All grief is equal, but not all wrongdoing is equal”insisted the (socialist) senator from Paris Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie.

The discussions subsequently turned heated, notably between Francis Szpiner and Eric Dupond-Moretti, each skilled attorneys, on the delicate topic of minimal sentences. The proper has in reality proposed a minimal sentence of two years of imprisonment for sure circumstances “road homicide”reintroducing a Sarkozy measure deserted since 2014.

“When these people are morally murderers, I consider that changing the law without changing anything about the penalties is not enough”defended Francis Szpiner. “We are in the process of making a consensual text into an exceptional text”the minister received aggravated. “I prefer efficiency to demagoguery”he added.

Adopted final week in committee, this gadget was lastly rejected in public session, the centrist group allied with the Republicans dissociating itself from this “political marker that could endanger the parliamentary shuttle”in response to senator for French individuals established exterior France Olivia Richard.