Official Gazette – Issue No. 36 – 20 August 2026
Page 3215
Law No. 68
Abolition of the Death Penalty in Lebanon
Parliament has adopted,
and the President of the Republic hereby promulgates, the following law:
Article 1: The death penalty is abolished wherever it is prescribed in Lebanese legislation.
Article 2: Article 37 of the Penal Code (Legislative Decree No. 340 of 1 March 1943, as amended) is amended to read as follows:
Article 37:
The ordinary criminal penalties are:
- Aggravated hard labour for life.
- Hard labour for life.
- Detention for life.
- Hard labour for a fixed term.
- Detention for a fixed term.
Article 3: The death penalty shall be replaced by aggravated hard labour for life for offences committed after this Law enters into force.
For offences committed before this Law enters into force, the death penalty shall be replaced by the penalty immediately below it in severity, namely hard labour for life.
All procedures governing investigation, prosecution and trial, as well as all other procedural rules and rules governing the enforcement of sentences, shall apply to offences for which the death penalty has been replaced by aggravated hard labour for life.
Article 4: Article 43 of the Penal Code and Articles 420 through 424 inclusive of Law No. 328 of 7 August 2001 (Code of Criminal Procedure) are repealed.
Article 5:
(a) The abolition of the death penalty shall apply to all judicial decisions handed down before the date of enactment of this Law against persons sentenced to death whose sentences have not been carried out. Their sentences shall be replaced by hard labour for life.
(b) Persons sentenced to death whose sentences have been replaced by aggravated hard labour for life shall be eligible only for the sentence reduction provided for in Law No. 463 of 17 September 2002 on the Enforcement of Sentences.
Article 6: This Law shall enter into force upon its publication in the Official Gazette.
Baabda, 7 August 2026
Signed: Joseph Aoun
By the President of the Republic
The Prime Minister
Signed: Nawaf Salam
The Prime Minister
Signed: Nawaf Salam
Explanatory Memorandum
Whereas human life is the supreme right upon which all other rights and freedoms rest, and a modern State is judged by the extent to which it respects human dignity, even when the person concerned has committed the most serious crimes;
Whereas the death penalty is the harshest and most final of criminal penalties, as it ends the life of the convicted person in a manner that leaves no possibility of review, correction or remedy, thereby rendering any miscarriage of justice irreparable and turning justice, when such an error occurs, into an irreversible injustice;
Whereas the administration of justice, notwithstanding its safeguards, independence and multiple levels of judicial review, remains a human endeavour subject to errors of assessment, proof or inference; and whereas numerous judicial experiences around the world have revealed cases of innocence after final death sentences had been handed down, prompting an increasing number of States to reconsider or completely abolish this penalty;
Whereas the philosophy of punishment in modern legislation has evolved from the concept of revenge towards the protection of society, justice, deterrence and rehabilitation, such that it is no longer acceptable for the State to take life in the name of the law when the same objective can be achieved through custodial penalties that effectively protect society;
Whereas comparative criminological studies and statistics have not established a conclusive link between retaining the death penalty and lower crime rates; rather, they have shown that, in many countries that have abolished it, rates of serious crime did not increase as a result, and that some of those countries recorded a decline in crime levels, confirming that effective deterrence depends more on the effectiveness of justice and the prompt enforcement of the law than on the nature of the penalty itself;
Whereas Lebanon is among the States that contributed to building the international human rights system, and the Lebanese thinker and diplomat Charles Malik played a fundamental role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined the right to life as an inherent human right that may be infringed only within the strictest limits permitted by international law;
Whereas the contemporary global trend is moving rapidly towards restricting the death penalty with a view to its abolition, in keeping with evolving concepts of justice, human rights and respect for human dignity;
Whereas Lebanon has, in practice, refrained from carrying out executions for many years, reflecting a settled national approach towards suspending recourse to this penalty and making it appropriate to complete this process by amending legal provisions in line with the prevailing legislative and judicial reality;
Whereas hard labour for life meets the requirements of general and specific deterrence and protects society from the most dangerous offenders without resorting to the definitive and irreversible termination of human life;
Whereas justice grows stronger as it moves away from revenge and towards protecting both individuals and society, the abolition of the death penalty does not constitute leniency towards crime, but rather advances the concept of justice and affirms the State’s confidence in its legal and judicial institutions and their ability to protect society without infringing the inherent right to life;
Accordingly, the attached legislative proposal has been prepared with the aim of abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with hard labour for life. We submit it to the Honourable Parliament for consideration and adoption.
هذه المقالة متاحة أيضًا بـ:
