|
维基百科原文照搬。
Robert Bickerdike was a businessman, politician, and social reformer, who believed the abolition of capital punishment was an imperative and to some extent his life’s mission. Few spoke as loudly or as eloquently as he did for this reform. As a Member of Parliament, in 1914 and again in 1916 he introduced a bill to replace the death penalty with a life sentence. He opposed capital punishment on many grounds, considering it an insult to Christianity and religion in general and a blot on any civilized nation. "There is nothing", he stated in the house, "more degrading to society at large ... than the death penalty." He also spoke of class disparities, pointing out that the punishment was administered to the poor far more often than to the wealthy. He refuted the notion that state-sponsored killing acted as a deterrent to murder and cautioned against the possibility of mistake.[6]
In 1950, an attempt was made to abolish capital punishment. Ross Thatcher, at that time a Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Member of Parliament, moved Bill No. 2 in order to amend the Criminal Code to abolish the death penalty. Thatcher later withdrew it for fear of Bill No. 2 not generating positive discussion and further harming the chances of abolition. In 1956, the Joint Committee of the House and Senate recommended the retention of capital punishment as the mandatory punishment for murder, which opened the door to the possibility of abolition.[7]
In 1961, legislation was introduced to reclassify murder into capital or non-capital offences. A capital murder involved a planned or deliberate murder, murder during violent crimes, or the murder of a police officer or prison guard. Only capital murder carried the death sentence.[8]
Following the success of Lester Pearson and the Liberal Party in the 1963 federal election, and through the successive governments of Pierre Trudeau, the federal cabinet commuted all death sentences as a matter of policy. Hence, the de facto abolition of the death penalty in Canada occurred in 1963. On November 30, 1967, Bill C-168 was passed creating a five-year moratorium on the use of the death penalty, except for murders of police and corrections officers. On January 26, 1973, after the expiration of the five-year experiment, the Solicitor General of Canada continued the partial ban on capital punishment, which would eventually lead to the abolition of capital punishment.[9] On July 14, 1976, Bill C-84 was passed by a narrow margin of 130:124 in a free vote, resulting in the de jure abolition of the death penalty, except for certain offences under the National Defence Act. These were removed in 1998.[10]
On June 30, 1987, a bill to restore the death penalty was defeated by the House of Commons in a 148–127 vote, in which Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Minister of Justice Ray Hnatyshyn, and Minister of External Affairs Joe Clark opposed the bill, whereas Deputy Prime Minister Donald Mazankowski and a majority of Progressive Conservative MPs supported it.[11][12][13][14]
First-degree murder, which before abolition was the offence of capital murder, now carries a mandatory life sentence without eligibility for parole until the person has served 25 years of the sentence.
英文不好的,太懒的,下面是我嚼过剩下的小结:
1. 这个事情是跨越几十年逐步改变的,而且是有反复的。
2. 多数推动者是政治家。
3. 再一次地,我没有白给维基百科捐钱。
所以要是我来回答你的问题,那么,这是民意所归。事实上我看不出法学家在这里有什么作用,他们又不能立法废法,只能解读法。
给你一个民意样本。从我和我同事的聊天看,他支持废除死刑的原因:
1.审判是总会有冤案的,死刑执行后就没有了补偿错误的机会。
2. 加拿大已经富裕到足以负担把死刑犯关到老死的地步了。
至于操控民意,伟大光辉正确,南边的川总,北边的大哥福特,都玩的不错。不过这个离题了。 |
|