Editorial: Strict punishment

Amidst revelations about the heinous murder in Glyka Nera, where a 32-year-old helicopter pilot smothered to death his 20-year-old wife with their infant daughter in the house, the discussion has unavoidably turned to the severity of sentencing and the core aim of averting such horrifying tragedies in the future.

Our contemporary justice system and legal culture have the tools to properly determine the responsibility for the felony and punish the culprit.

A crucial parameter here is whether the punishment will be proportional to the heinous crime.

Ineluctably, stiffening penalties in the Criminal Code is a necessary condition both as a correctional measure and for the sake of properly meting out justice.

To be clear, the new framework that the justice ministry and the government must examine does not have to do with a more punitive approach to this or other cases of femicide as compared to other weighty crimes.

On the contrary, it has to do with the need to create an environment that is at once contemporary and strict, and also without shady areas or loopholes that could allow a repetition of such a crime or create a climate of impunity and lenient sentencing.

Part of the equation of deterring and handling the crime is creating a legal framework that is in line with new conditions and new aspects of criminal acts that have of late become more flexible and complex.

May the horrifying murder of Glyka Nera be the starting point for a serious bolstering of institutions and remind us of the red lines in the rule of law.