|
Capital punishment is legal in Tonga, but has not been imposed for more than thirty years. Amnesty International currently categorises Tonga as an abolitionist in practice.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Death Penalty: Countries Abolitionist in Practice )〕 Tonga is the last country in Oceania to not have abolished the death penalty and is most likely to abolish it in the 2020s. Under the Criminal Offences Act the crimes of murder and treason may be punished by sentence of death.〔Criminal Offences Act, sections 44 and 91.〕 No such sentence shall be carried out unless approved by the King, and he may commute the sentence to life imprisonment.〔Criminal Offences Act, section 33.〕 The death penalty may not be imposed on pregnant women,〔Criminal Offences Act, section 40.〕 or on those under 15.〔Criminal Offences Act, section 91.〕 Tonga's chosen method of execution is hanging.〔Criminal Offences Act, section 35.〕 The last execution took place on September 7, 1982, after three men, Flatoti Sole, Livingi Sole and Fili Esau, were hanged for murder in the village of Vaini.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Capital punishment in the Commonwealth )〕 The government considered abolition at the time, but decided to retain the death penalty.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Hands Off Cain: Tonga )〕 In 2004, a bill to impose the death penalty for drug smuggling was defeated 10-7 in the Tongan Legislative Assembly.〔 In 2005 Tevita Siale Vola became the first Tongan convicted of murder in 24 years,〔 but the judge declined to impose the death penalty, stating that it was reserved only for "the rarest of rare cases when the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed". In 2007 it was revealed that several men suspected of murder during the 2006 Nuku'alofa riots might never face trial, after Australian investigators refused to hand over autopsy reports due to concerns about the possible imposition of the death penalty. In 2008 Tonga voted against the UN moratorium on the death penalty in the United Nations General Assembly.〔 ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Capital punishment in Tonga」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|