Cote D’Ivoire’s new Constitution, approved by a national...

Cote D’Ivoire’s new Constitution, approved by a national referendum held on July 23 and 24, 2000, provides for the abolition of the death penalty.
Article 2 of the Costitution stipulates that: “toute sanction tendant à la privation de la vie humaine est interdite” (“all penalties resulting in the deprivation of human life are prohibited”).
Under Ivorian law the Constitution takes precedence over penal law, thus courts can no longer hand down death sentences.
The new constitution also foresees the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years, prohibits female genital mutilations, and safeguards other political and civil rights.
Côte d'Ivoire has been abolitionist in practice since its independence in 1960.
On 9 March 2015, the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire voted to definitely abolish the death penalty in the country. Following the adoption by the Government on 15 January 2015, the Parliament unanimously approved two bills amending the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, and replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment. The complete abolition of the death penalty in Côte d’Ivoire put an end to 14 years of discrepancy between the Constitution, which had abolished capital punishment in 2000, and the criminal code still retaining it in numerous articles, though not applied because forbidden by the Constitution. The National Group of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) in Côte d’Ivoire was strongly supportive of this development and voted in favour of those bills.
On December 18, 2014 the Côte d’Ivoire co-sponsored and voted in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly, as in previous years.
In 2007 it was absent during the vote.