Definition of Civil Death

Civil death occurs when a public position is disqualified from exercising its functions. Said disqualification is also applicable to officials or companies that have some relationship with the administration. In this sense, civil death is considered a legal fiction, since something that has not occurred (death) becomes a reality.

Another example of legal fiction is related to the rights of the unborn.

Loss of rights

We speak of civil death to indicate that a person or entity has lost a series of rights as a result of some type of serious behavior outside the law. It is, therefore, a kind of exceptional punishment.

This label is sometimes used in reference to individuals who enter religious life and consequently partially abandon their civil status.

Precedents

In Ancient Greece the sanction The exile was equivalent to the current civil death, since the exile could not exercise his rights in the place where he had been born. Something very similar happened during the Middle Ages with people sentenced to life imprisonment. In some dictatorial contexts in recent history, the concept of civil death has been equated with enforced disappearances.

A new proposal to combat political corruption

The phenomenon of corruption politics it concerns a large part of society in many countries. In some nations this reality has become a kind of chronic disease.

In recent years, some political groups with regenerative intentions have raised the issue of civil death as a mechanism to combat corruption. In this sense, the corrupt politician sanctioned with this denomination could not occupy any public office again, since his disqualification would be permanent and not simply temporary. On this question there is an intense debate in Panama since the beginning of 2018 (in several popular demonstrations the label "civil death" has been used to demand greater forcefulness when punishing the corrupt).

In the case of Peru

Disqualification from holding public office is the most common way of promoting a legislation related to civil death. In recent years, in the nation Andina has expanded the range of crimes that can lead to civil death.

In addition to the conventional crimes of corruption, other types of crimes have been incorporated, such as those related to terrorism, with drug trafficking or with capital evasion. Thus, instead of applying a temporary disqualification, the new legislation contemplates perpetual disqualification.

This new legal framework aims to be an effective tool in the fight against large-scale corruption. scale.

Fotolia photos: CB / Alexey Bannykh