Age of criminal responsibility
UN rapporteur condemns legislation pending in Congress
The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, today appealed to Brazilian lawmakers to reject the proposed constitutional amendments currently pending in Congress to reduce the age of criminal responsibility and increase prison sentences for young people to as long as 10 years.
The urgent appeal comes as the Constitution and Justice Committee of the Senate prepares to vote next week on Amendment 33/12, which reduces the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 for serious crimes.
“Children are at heightened risks of violence, abuses and acts of torture when deprived of their liberty,” said Méndez. “Children’s unique vulnerability requires States to implement higher standards and broader safeguards for the prevention of torture and ill-treatment.”
The UN independent expert also expressed his concern over the passage of Senate Bill 333/15 – which has already been approved by senators and is now pending in the Lower House of Congress – that would raise the maximum length of sentences for children over 14 to up to 10 years, without the right to sentence progression.
Méndez also pointed out that prosecuting adolescents as adults would violate international obligations assumed by Brazil under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“The approval of these proposals would worsen the current overcrowding in prisons across Brazil, a situation that frequently leads to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” said Méndez, who visited Brazilian prisons in August 2015.
This is the second time that UN experts have spoken out against plans to reduce the age of criminal responsibility in Brazil. In June 2015, Jorge Cardona, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, said “there is not a country in the world that has reduced delinquency by applying a strong-handed policy against adolescents”.
