Abolishing the death penalty: The heated debate behind Lebanon’s historic vote

Report by Petra Abou Haidar, English adaptation by Mariella Succar

Lebanon has abolished the death penalty after its implementation was suspended for decades, becoming the first country in the Middle East to officially end capital punishment.

The measure was approved despite opposition from the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc.

Under the version approved by the joint parliamentary committees after the proposal was referred back to them from the previous session, existing death sentences will be commuted to life imprisonment once the law takes effect. For future cases, the death penalty will be replaced by aggravated life imprisonment.

What is the difference between the two, and what does the change mean for those already sentenced?

The Loyalty to the Resistance bloc objected, with MP Hussein Hajj Hassan warning in a lengthy intervention against what he described as “a reduction on top of a reduction” — replacing death sentences with life imprisonment while allowing those sentenced to benefit from further reductions under the new general amnesty law.

His remarks prompted Paula Yacoubian and other MPs to call for a vote, while other MPs argued that the two laws are separate and that exceptions could be defined when the general amnesty law is debated.
Other objections were also raised. 

MP Jihad Samad said abolishing the death penalty violates Islamic law, while MP Bilal Badr objected to the term “aggravated life imprisonment,” arguing that it is not recognized under Lebanese law.

After all the back-and-forth, the law was approved in a session where political tensions ran higher than the debate over the legislation itself.