The Sense Behind Criminalising Femicide: Maltese Lawyer Speaks Out
Maltese lawyer Marcus Degiorgio has given his views on the logic behind legislation specifically criminalising femicide in Malta.
In a statement today, Prime Minister Robert Abela confirmed that Malta will specifically criminalise femicide.
Degiorgio explained that currently, Maltese law caters for the aggravation of specific offenses. Murder is one example, but so is theft. The latter of which is potentially aggravated by the means, the item itself, and if there was any violence involved.
In normal circumstances, the court responds to such ‘aggravations’ with increases in punishment. And among such aggravations are ‘gender’ and ‘identity’: factors that could increase the nature of the offense by a degree or two.
With the punishment of wilful homicide being imprisonment ‘for life’, Malta already subjects persons guilty of the crime to a lifetime behind bars.
Because ‘life’ in Malta, literally means one’s entire, remaining life.
“How can the offense of wilful homicide be aggravated (increase the punishment), if the punishment of such heinous crime is to die in prison?”
“We’re only granted one lifetime. Furthermore, if the motive behind committing the crime of wilful homicide is gender, then the crime of wilful homicide still subsists. You rot in prison.”
Following the recent murder of Paulina Dembska, the Women’s Rights Foundation and the University of Malta proposed that femicide should be considered an aggravated offense to homicide.
The Nationalist Party, and even new party Volt Malta, backed this proposal.
However, lawyer Veronique Dalli had dismissed this call, arguing that femicide is already criminalised as homicide and that there cannot be stricter penalties than life imprisonment.
Do you think femicide should be criminalised specifically?