Last Thursday afternoon, the closing speech of Deputy Prosecutor Bob Piron was sharply interrupted by the President of the criminal Chamber of the Court of Luxembourg, Prosper Klein, who, astonished, jumped on his chair, goggled his eyes and asked his colleague to better explain what he was saying. That day, the Court was hearing the case of a forty-year-old man accused of repeatedly molesting, for months, his partner’s nine-year-old daughter. During his speech, with reference to the law on child sex abuse, Bob Piron said that, in summer, while judges were on holiday, the penal code had been “slightly” modified.
The change involves only the article strengthening penalties for abuses on children under 11, which has been deleted, thanks to the Law of 16 July 2011. The text regulating this matter is the following, “Any offence against chastity, committed without violence or threat, individually or by helping a third person, on a child under 16 shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of one to five years.” As previously observed, before July 2011, the early age of a child was treated as an aggravating factor. In the case, indeed, of abuses on children under 11, prison terms ranged from five to ten years. Such an aggravating factor no longer exists.
Prosper Klein’s surprise soon turned into disappointment, and that emerges from his words, “I am curious to know who supported such a change. It is a gift, a bunch of flowers we give to paedophiles.”
As usual, bad news are never alone, and that same day Klein also knew that such an amendment re-qualified the offence of sexual abuse on children and changed it from felony into misdemeanour. The difference between these two terms goes beyond legal rhetoric and acquires an important value because it involves different prosecution time limitations. As for the former, criminal prosecution stops ten years after the fact, while, as for the latter, this time is reduced to only five years.
The amendment is really difficult to understand. We hope, therefore, that the strong declaration expressed by the Court President may lead the lawmaker to better explain the reasons lying behind a so unexplainable choice.
That was a really bad day for the President of the criminal Chamber who, leaving the courtroom said loud, “May those who think badly be despised, but I wonder if this is a pure coincidence”. We do not know what coincidences Klein referred to, but it is clear that his disappointment melt into a melancholy grief.
On the inside: