Conference turris::scandia

461.0. "Capital punishment (Death penalty)" by TLE::SAVAGE () Mon Apr 22 1991 10:40

    From: [email protected] (TROND BORREHAUG HANSEN)
    Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.europe,
	clari.news.features,clari.news.law,clari.news.issues.conflict
    Subject: Norwegians argue about wartime death penalty
    Date: 21 Apr 91 00:05:16 GMT
 
 
    UPI News Feature	
	
	OSLO, Norway (UPI) -- Norway, which hasn't had capital punishment
since 1979, is embroiled in an acrimonious debate over whether to ratify
a U.N. treaty that would oblige signatories to abolish the death penalty
"for all times."
	In a country otherwise noted for placid consensus politics, military
and political leaders are on a collision course as Parliament moves
toward ratification of the treaty.
	Since the country does not have a death penalty, the debate rages
over whether the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, should have the
option for reinstating it, particularly in wartime as it did during
World War II.
	Among the strong supporters of ratification is Labor Party Defense
Minister Johan J. Holst.
	"He is opposed in principle to the death penalty, in wartime as well
as peacetime," Defense Ministry spokesman Gunnar Angeltveit told United
Press International.
	A majority in Parliament supports ratification but strong criticism
has come from military leaders, constitutional specialists and war
veterans, who claim the proposed treaty does not have popular backing.
	"Parliament needs time to consider all aspects of the death penalty
question. It seems that the government is trying to smuggle this matter
through the back door," said Hans Roesjorde, chairman of Norway's
Defense Committee. 
	"Is there no end to the irresponsibility of politicians in taking
decisions with no basis in popular support?" said wartime resistance
veteran Per Munthe-Kaas.
	"In 1942, I was told by the resistance leadership that I was allowed
to kill myself, if necessary. But I was not allowed to shoot a German,"
Munthe-Kaas said.
	"We have to retain the option of carrying out death sentences when
all other civilized rules have been pushed aside," said another
veteran, Tore Gjelsvik, who organized underground operations during
World War II.
	"I do not understand how it would be possible to carry out organized
resistance operations without being allowed to kill those who try to
crush us," Gjelsvik added.
	The U.N. treaty on capital punishment has been ratified by only four
countries -- Sweden, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand.
	Norway abolished the death penalty for civilian crimes in 1905. The
last execution took place in 1876 when murderer Kristoffer Nilsen
Grindalen was publicly beheaded on a scaffold built -- according to
custom -- near the scene of the crime.
	Capital punishment was retained for certain military crimes in
wartime. During Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1945, Norway's government-
in-exile reintroduced the death penalty for certain civilian crimes as
well, notably political high treason.
	Following liberation in 1945, a number of Germans as well as
Norwegians who had sided with the occupying power were tried and
condemned to death.
	Among those executed was Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian puppet
dictator, shot by a firing squad in October 1946. His fate was shared by
25 other Norwegians and 13 Germans, the last execution taking place in
1948.
	Parliament abolished the death penalty altogether in 1979.
	In the debate at the time, the point was made that the Storting could
reintroduce capital punishment if future events made it necessary.
	It is this option that will be removed if Norway ratifies the U.N.
treaty.
	Supporters of ratification say a death sentence, once executed, is
irreversible and argue that when the state takes a criminal's life, it
lowers itself to the moral standards of the criminal.
	"Whether someone becomes a traitor or not is hardly a question of
what punishment that person faces," said Paul Gioertz, secretary-
general of the Norwegian branch of the human rights organization Amnesty
International.
	"A person does not sit down and calculate what risk they run in a
cool and cynical manner. Peacetime statistics show that most murders and
other serious crimes are committed in situations of great stress.
Wartime is hardly less stressful," Gioertz added.
	But opponents say the absence of a judicial death penalty will
inevitably lead to mob rule and lynchings of traitors and collaborators
in the aftermath of a war. They also question the morality of asking a
country's soldiers to sacrifice their lives, while compatriots who put
those soldiers' lives at risk through treason or spying face nothing
worse than a prison term.
	Other European countries that have abolished capital punishment in
peacetime maintain it for wartime.
	Although British parliamentarians have repeatedly rejected attempts
to reintroduce a peacetime death penalty, nobody has suggested banning
it in wartime.
	Britain retains the death penalty for five wartime offenses --
assisting the enemy, serious misconduct in action, obstructing
operations, mutiny or failure to suppress mutiny.
	In Poland, where courts have stopped giving death sentences pending
an abolition law, few expect wartime crimes to be included in the
reprieve.
	"Laws can be tougher in wartime," said Col. Jan Malinowski, chief
of Poland's Military Court.
	The Soviet military was adamant that wartime capital punishment was a
necessity.
	"The death penalty must exist for spies, for those who abandon their
arms in combat as they betray their state," said Col. Alexander Trukhin
of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office in Moscow.