The legal position on the crime of killing on grounds of honour

By lawyer Mohammed Munir Abu Salem:

The crime of killing is among the gravest and most repellent crimes committed on earth, particularly as this crime takes the life of a human soul to which God granted life and which He made the highest and noblest of souls. God forbade the crime of killing in His noble Book in His words: "And do not kill the soul which God has forbidden, except by right." God has forbidden believers to kill a human soul without lawful cause or reason. The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, enjoined us not to kill or take this soul without right, saying: "The demolition of the Kaaba stone by stone is lighter in God's sight than the killing of a Muslim man."

The forms of killing in societies are many, and perhaps the worst of these forms is killing on grounds of honour, which is a pre-Islamic invention governed by customs and traditions, since Islamic law and the Islamic faith forbade this crime. For the crime of killing to occur there must be an act of indecency, namely adultery, and this is established only by four witnesses, as provided in the Holy Qur'an in His words: "And those who accuse their wives and have no witnesses except themselves, then the witness of one of them is four testimonies by God that he is of the truthful." Surat Al-Nur, verse 5.

Palestinian law has addressed the crime of killing on grounds of honour (penal code no. 74 of 1936) in the text of article 18: "An excuse may be accepted for committing an act or an omission... where, had it occurred, it would have done grave harm to his honour, his property or his reputation, etc." In principle, whoever commits the crime of killing with the intention of taking a life should be tried and sentenced to death, and from the preceding article it is clear that this article gives the right to kill that woman, and this is one of the causes of the violence inflicted on women. Many of those who commit this crime escape punishment for their act, benefiting from the mitigating excuse.

This was compounded when article 42 of penal code no. 74 of 1936 gave the court the power to reduce this penalty, which is contrary to the principle of justice, which provides that no one may carry out a prescribed penalty or retribution or impose a punishment on a person accused of a crime, whatever it may be, nor interpret religion according to their whim in submission to custom, for judgment falls within the competence of sharia or the law and is passed by judges. From the above it is clear that such a penalty must be carried out by the guardian, the ruler or the caliph, whereas the perpetrator commits his crime and his act taking the law into his own hands, acting as both judge and executioner, benefiting from the texts of the law, which justified his act in committing his crime in article 18, making it a mitigating excuse from which the perpetrator benefits. This law was supposed to deter those who commit this crime, not to support them. Faced with this repellent crime, committed under many pretexts, many steps must be taken to reduce it, through the following recommendations:

1. Applying and enforcing a new Palestinian penal code that guarantees effective protection for women and against violence against them.
2. Enacting a new family protection law consistent with the concept of social justice and guaranteeing the protection of the family.
3. Calling on all civil society and human rights organisations to provide legal services to women, to know their legal situation and to follow up women's legal position, and to intensify the activities that would reduce the violations Palestinian women are subjected to.