Zaffaroni: “If a 16-year-old can not vote, he can not be given a sentence”

 

September 6, 2012

 

The Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Zaffaroni said the right to vote has to be equated with the minimum age for criminal responsibility.

The Minister of the Supreme Court was not inclined either for or against the bill that allows a choice to vote for young people between 16 and 18 years, but questioned the unequity with the age of accountability.

“I do not have an opinion, but what I see coming what I have been criticizing for years: the disparity in capabilities,” Zaffaroni said.

“It is inconceivable that someone is criminally responsible from the age of 16, but no capacity to marry or to hire,” the judge of the Court.

“If we see the criminal part, (the child) has no possibility to dispose of her body up to a certain age, so I think that somehow you have to mix all that, that is not as contradictory,” he continued.

When asked again if a 16-year-old has “conscience” to elect their representatives, Zaffaroni evade the question again, but shot: “If I had no conscience for that, you could not put a sentence (… ) or criminal capacity up to 18 or down the political capacity at 16, one of two things. “