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Canada’s national day, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the British North America Act (today called the Constitution Act, 1867), which united two British colonies and a province of the British Empire into a single country called Canada. Canada Day observances take place throughout Canada as well as internationally.
The president of the Corte Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Court), Luis Paulino Mora Mora, considers that a sentence of 50 years in prison “is a life imprisonment” and, moreover, is contrary “for the purposes of rehabilitation and social reintegration”.
Mora delivered his opinion to save his vote to an action of unconstitutionality against Articles 51 and 76 of the Código Penal (Penal Code), which raised the maximum prison sentence of 35 to 50 years. The other six judges of the Constitutional Court dismissed the action.
Luis Paulino Mora said, “What I do is a mathematical operation. A Costa Rican has an average life of 80 years. A person starts to be held criminally responsible at 18 years of age and begins committing crimes between the age of 25 and 30 and if we add 50 years in prison, is 80 years old. That is a life imprisonment”.
“There’s no rationale, and if what you want is to remove a person’s social cluster, that is another thing,” said President of the Court.
The action of unconstitutionality brought was filed in September 2008 by Alexánder Vargas Rojas who was sentenced to 173 years in prison (reduced to a maximum of 50 years) for committing a triple murder in 1995.
For Mora, a 50 years prison sentence does not allow a prisoner to rejoin his family, access to decent work or socialize with society.
Mora said that he considers 25 years a reasonable maximum prison sentence.
An initiative by legislators of the Movimiento Libertario (ML) party wants to the government to forgive the fines for violations of the new Ley de Tránsito (Traffic Law) of the more than 11.000 drivers who have appealed their fines since the implementation of the law on March 1, 2010.
Danilo Cubero, head of the ML party legislators, explained that the initiative is to avoid the expected long lines at the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (Cosevi) when the 2011 Marchamo comes due in December.
Even more, said Cubero, is the non-compliance with the decentralization of the oficinas de impugnación (appeals office) and the delays in dealing with the appeals.
The Cosevi is telling drivers filing appeals to expect a resolution in six months.
The legislators explained that fines for speeding and reckless driving are not to be forgiven under his plan.
Héctor Monge, the director of the Cosevi, denied any delays in the appeals process and that there are appeal offices in all the provinces.
Monge explained that before the new law went into effect, drivers were used to paying their tickets at the end of the year in time for the Marchamo.
According to Cosevi records of the 99.483 traffic tickets issued by Tránsito officials since March 1, only 9.245 have been paid and 11.781 are in appeal.
Under the current system, an unpaid traffic ticket regardless that there is an appeal in process is deemed “condenado”, which means it has to be paid before a Marchamo can be issued.
