PA to amend penal code, including promoting gender equality, criminalizing torture, and increasing punishments for honor killings

Headline: “The Committee to Adapt Legislation begins work on amending the penal code”

“The Committee to Adapt Legislation held a meeting yesterday [Sept. 9, 2019] in the presence of [PA] Minister of Justice Muhammad Al-Shalaldeh, in order to begin work on adapting [Jordanian] Penal Code No. 16 of 1960 to the international conventions, and particularly those that are related to human rights and the war on crime. This was after the [PA] government ordered the minister to submit an amended draft of the penal code.

According to a statement from the [PA] Ministry of Justice, the Committee to Adapt Legislation will work on the necessary amendments to the penal code, and after formulating the official vision regarding the necessary amendments, the recommendations and amendments will be raised before the civil society institutions. The necessary consultations on the matter will also be held, and in conjunction an internet portal will be established to receive legal comments from everyone in society and the institutions regarding clauses that they wish to amend.

Minister Al-Shalaldeh emphasized that the amendment of the law will include:

• Increasing the punishment for criminals in a manner that will ensure that they are consistent with the international conventions, and as part of this, creating equality between men and women
• Ensuring the punishment of those who commit crimes from a motive of honor (i.e., “honor killings”)
• Criminalizing human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and young women
• Criminalizing violence against children, exploitation of children in pornographic material, and child trafficking, and increasing the punishment for crimes committed against them
• Criminalizing torture…
• Increasing the punishment for crimes committed against people with disabilities, and criminalizing hysterectomies [for women with disabilities]”