MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Libya
Index
The Libyan system of criminal justice has been heavily
influenced by Islamic law, particularly since Qadhafi's
proclamation of the Popular Revolution on April 15, 1973. On that
date, the Libyan leader announced that all existing laws formulated
by the monarchy were to be replaced by the sharia, the sacred law
of Islam. Some amendments to bring the criminal code into
conformity with Islam had been made before this proclamation. In
October 1972, the government enacted a law providing for the
amputation of the right hands of convicted thieves. (As a modern
note to this traditional Islamic punishment, the government gave
assurances that amputation would be performed at a hospital under
sanitary conditions with an anesthetic.) In practice, this penalty
has not been commonly imposed.
Qadhafi's proclamation involved a reorientation of Libya's
entire criminal code, because, according to the 1954 code, no act
was a crime unless defined as such by law. Yet the code also
specified that nothing in the criminal code affected the individual
rights provided for in Islamic sharia. The two provisions were
basically incompatible because the 1954 code identified crimes in
decreasing order of seriousness as felonies, misdemeanors, and
contraventions, assigning maximum sentences to each, whereas under
the sharia an act could be--depending upon the circumstances--
mandatory, commendable, permissible, reprehensible, or forbidden.
Efforts to align the criminal code's three categories of
offense with the five classifications embodied in the sharia
involved Libyan legal and religious scholars in an extensive and
slow-moving process to minimize the obvious contradictions in the
two systems. Changes in the code's provisions were announced from
time to time, but the basic philosophical issues had not been
completely resolved by 1973.
Amendments to the criminal code after 1973 addressed both moral
issues related to Islamic beliefs and purely secular matters,
notably
those concerning state security. In official legal announcements in
1973 and 1974, lashings and imprisonment of adulterers,
imprisonment of homosexuals for up to five years, and floggings for
those transgressing the fast of Ramadan were issued as laws "in
line with positive Islamic legislation." Another law provided forty
lashes for any Muslim who drank or served alcoholic beverages. For
alcoholic-related offenses, non-Muslims could receive fines or
imprisonment, and fines and jail terms were set for possession of
or trafficking in liquor.
In August 1975, following a major coup attempt, the criminal
code was further revised to strengthen state security. Such actions
as "scheming" with foreigners to harm Libya's military or political
position, facilitating war against the state, revealing state or
defense secrets, infiltration into military reservations, and
possession of means of espionage were made subject to harsh
penalties, including life imprisonment and hanging. Punishments for
public servants were stiffer than for ordinary citizens.
An increasing number of acts have brought the threat of
execution. A 1975 law provided that membership in a political party
opposing the principles of the 1969 Revolution could result in
death. In 1977 economic crimes, such as damaging oil installations
or stock piles of basic commodities, were added. Qadhafi's repeated
calls for abolition of the death sentence have not been translated
into legislative action.
The Libyan criminal justice system under the Qadhafi-led
government has been characterized by many repressive features.
Victims reported torture and beatings during interrogation as a
matter of practice, and long jail sentences for political
nonconformity. Other irregularities included bypassing the regular
court system by special tribunals and holding show trials. The
international human rights organization, Amnesty International, has
repeatedly reported evidence of grave violations of civil rights
and of Libyan law. Most of Amnesty International's inquiries and
appeals to Libya to free political prisoners, to abandon torture to
extract confessions, and to commute death penalties have gone
unanswered.
An account by Amnesty International in 1977 cited twenty-six
executions (the first death penalties that had been carried out in
twenty-three years), large numbers of Libyans who had been held in
detention for up to four years without court action, trials that
were "anything but fair and impartial," and defendants who were
deprived of their basic legal rights under Libyan law. When it was
pointed out to Libyan authorities that they were failing to conform
to UN agreements Libya had ratified--the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights--the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs replied that there were
currently no political prisoners in Libyan prisons and that all
means of defense and safeguards of justice were provided for
accused persons. In 1978 Amnesty International asserted that the
people's court system violated the UN agreements because the courts
were composed largely of government representatives rather than
members of an impartial judiciary. Moreover, all trials in people's
courts were held in secret and no appeals were permitted.
A further report by Amnesty International described a new
series of breaches of judicial norms between 1982 and 1984. It
cited the trial in 1982 of twenty-five individuals on charges of
membership in an illegal organization (the Baath--Arab Socialist
Resurrection--Party). The accused were acquitted because their
confessions were obtained through torture. In violation of Libyan
law, they were retried in 1983 before a revolutionary court headed
by a captain in the special security branch and received severe
sentences, including death penalties in three cases. In 1984, eight
people were hanged publicly following decisions of Basic People's
Congresses in their localities that they were members of the Muslim
Brotherhood, an international Islamic movement banned by Qadhafi as
an illegal political party. In the same year, two students were
hanged before thousands of their fellow students at Al Fatah
University in Tripoli. No explanation was given of the charges or
of the judicial proceedings, although the students were possibly
tried before the student revolutionary committee. Amnesty
International has been unsuccessful in gaining its representatives
admission to trials and has not received replies to most of its
inquiries and appeals.
The penal system was a responsibility of the Secretariat of
Interior and was administered by a department of the police
administration. Three institutions--the Central Prison at Tripoli,
Kuwayfiyah Prison at Benghazi, and Jdeida Prison outside Tripoli--
were known to exist, and smaller facilities in less populated
centers were assumed to be part of the system. Qadhafi granted
permission for visits by Amnesty International to several prisons
in the late 1970s, but the necessary arrangements were never made
by Libyan authorities. Subsequent efforts to inspect living
conditions of political prisoners have been unsuccessful.
According to a report submitted by Libya to the UN, the prison
system was reorganized under Law No. 47 in 1975. According to the
report, the thrust of this law was to change the prisons from
institutions of "punishment and terror" to ones where inmates were
afforded education and training as part of a program to
rehabilitate offenders. According to the report, the law envisaged
a series of increasingly less restrictive penal facilities in which
inmates could earn moves upward through a hierarchy of prisons by
good behavior and an appropriate attitude. As of 1987 the extent to
which these objectives had been realized had not been made public.
Data as of 1987
|
|