Duration of rape should no longer be a criterion
Published: Friday, Aug 16th 2024, 17:10
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The duration of the rape should no longer be a criterion for individual sentencing. The National Council committee responsible concludes that the case law of the Federal Supreme Court must be corrected by the legislator.
According to a Federal Court ruling, the "relatively short duration of the rape in comparison" may be taken into account when sentencing individuals. In the recent past, various court rulings have caused public criticism.
Three years ago, for example, a ruling by the Basel Court of Appeal sparked protests across the country. The court had interpreted the fact that the act of a rapist had been of "relatively short duration" compared to other rape cases as mitigating the punishment.
At the same time, the court stated that it did not mean to imply that a sexual assault that only lasted a short time would not result in severe traumatization for the victim. Furthermore, the reduced sentence did not call the crime into question, nor did it declare the victim to be complicit. Nevertheless, people in Basel, Neuchâtel, Lausanne and Bern demonstrated against the reduced sentence.
Long duration aggravating the penalty
Now the National Council's Legal Affairs Committee (RK-N) is taking action. It has approved a parliamentary initiative by Céline Amaudruz, an SVP National Councillor from Geneva, by 11 votes to 4 with 10 abstentions, as reported by the Parliamentary Services on Friday.
The initiative calls for the Criminal Code to be amended so that the culpability of the perpetrator is assessed without taking into account the duration of the coercion suffered. However, it should be possible to classify the duration as an aggravating circumstance of cruelty in any case.
At one of its next meetings, the RK-N will also examine whether the rules on individual sentencing for serious crimes committed in the context of domestic violence should also be adapted.
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