Hungary's Penalty

From DW:
"Hungary's Orban ponders return of the death penalty"

Hungary's prime minster has raised the possibility of reintroducing the death penalty in the European Union member country. Victor Orban made the statement in the wake of a deadly stabbing that made national headlines.  Prime Minister Orban told reporters in the southwestern city of Pecs on Tuesday that existing penalties for serious crimes such as murder were too soft and that something needed to be done to remedy the problem. "The death penalty question should be put on the agenda in Hungary," Orban said. He added that it was necessary "to make clear to criminals that Hungary will stop at nothing when it comes to protecting its citizens." The right-wing politician was speaking a week after the stabbing death of a 21-year-old female clerk in a Trafik tobacco and newspaper shop in the nearby town of Kaposvar, which made headlines across the country. Under current Hungarian law the stiffest sentence that can be handed down is a life sentence with no chance of parole. Hungary, which became a member of the European Union in 2004, abolished capital punishment after the fall of communism in 1990. If Budapest were to seek to reintroduce the death penalty, this would put it on a collision course with the EU, as this would contravene the 28-member bloc's Charter of Fundamental Rights. Orban is already at loggerheads with the EU over its immigration policy. Last Friday, Orban told the Hungarian public broadcaster that the EU immigration policy was "stupid" and that "immigration should be stopped." This came a day after an emergency summit of EU leaders in Brussels agreed on a package of measures aimed at preventing migrants from dying as they try to cross the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to reach EU territory.

 

^ I don't always agree with what Orban says, but I do now with his stance on the death penalty. I will never understand a country that doesn't have the death penalty for crimes like serial murders, war crimes or terrorism. To me that just shows a very weak country and people. I would have more respect for a country or people that had the death penalty as part of their law and didn't use it than one that simply did away with it. Right now the jury in Massachusetts is deciding the fate of the convicted Boston Marathon bomber. Massachusetts is one of those "weak" places that got rid of the death penalty, but because terrorism in a federal crime in the US and the Federal Government has the death penalty it is being considered for the bomber. Anyone who has had a personal attachment to a crime like murder or terrorism knows what loss is and the only true punishment is the death penalty. You hear millions of cases where a convicted murderer or terrorist is sentenced to life in prison and yet they are released several years later. That's not a punishment for their horrible crimes, but a vacation. In this case I hope Hungary does the correct thing and brings back the death penalty. People complain that it will go against the EU and what it stands for yet the EU already does that in many different areas. The so-called "Freedom of Movement' provision that is supposed to apply to ALL citizens within the European Union has so many exceptions (mostly those from eastern Europe.) The EU is more concerned with a crumbling economy, the possibility of loosing Greece from the Eurozone, etc to fix all the numerous other issues and discrepancies in the member-states. ^

http://www.dw.de/hungarys-orban-ponders-return-of-the-death-penalty/a-18415964