Lebanon permanently abolishes the death penalty

The President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, promulgated on Monday 17 August 2026 Law No. 68 abolishing the death penalty in Lebanon. Its signature concludes the institutional path of a reform adopted a few days earlier by Parliament and transforms a de facto moratorium that has lasted since 2004 into a legal abolition. Capital sentences thus disappear from Lebanese law and are replaced by life imprisonment with aggravated forced labour. This decision is a historic change for Lebanese justice, even though it is taking place in the midst of a much broader debate on prisons, lengthy detentions and the controversial law of general amnesty.

Joseph Aoun promulgates Law 68

The last institutional act took place on Monday 17 August at the Baabda Palace. President Joseph Aoun has promulgated Act No. 68, passed a few days earlier by the Chamber of Deputies, which provides forabolition of the death penalty in Lebanon. The President of the Republic announced the promulgation of the text, thus completing the constitutional procedure necessary for its entry into the Lebanese legal order.

This signature gives final effect to the decision taken by the Members on 11 August. Until now, Lebanon had been in an intermediate situation: capital punishment had always been included in several criminal laws and the courts could still impose death sentences, but the authorities had no longer carried out those sentences for more than twenty-two years. The last use of capital punishment was on 19 January 2004.

The reform therefore changes the very nature of this moratorium. The absence of execution so far depended on political and institutional practice. It is now becoming a rule of law. A Government could no longer simply decide to resume executions on the basis of existing criminal provisions, since the penalty itself disappeared from the arsenal of sanctions.

The scope of the presidential enactment thus goes beyond mere formality. The parliamentary vote had established the principle of abolition. The publication of the law by Joseph Aoun closed the legislative process and incorporated reform into Lebanese positive law.

Death penalty in Lebanon: what the law really changes

The most immediate change relates to the sanctions applicable to crimes that so far could result in a death sentence. The new system replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment with aggravated forced labour. Abolition therefore does not mean the disappearance of the heaviest sentences or the automatic release of persons convicted of serious crimes.

This clarification is essential in the Lebanese context. The debate on the death penalty took place at the same time as another much more controversial discussion on the general amnesty. Both reforms affect the penal system, but they respond to different logics. Abolition removes a category of sanction. Amnesty acts on certain convictions or prosecutions already handed down or initiated.

For those who were under a death sentence, the reform now excludes the possibility of execution. Existing capital punishments must be transformed in accordance with the new legal framework. Before the vote, about 85 people were still on death row in Lebanon, according to data reported during the debate on abolition.

The change also concerns future court decisions. The judges will no longer be able to impose the death penalty for the crimes to which she was previously attached. They will have to apply the new maximum penalty provided by the legislator.

However, abolition does not alter the characterization of the crimes concerned. Aggravated murder, treason or other extremely serious offences continue to be punishable by severe criminal penalties. The reform addresses the nature of the ultimate penalty and not the abolition of criminal responsibility.

A historic vote on 11 August

The presidential signature comes six days after Parliament’s vote. On 11 August 2026, the Chamber of Deputies approved abolition in a session that marked a break with decades of unsuccessful debates.

Justice Minister Adel Nassar presented this decision as a historic step. Several long-standing parliamentarians committed to abolition had also defended the reform by invoking the right to life, the risk of miscarriage of justice and the need to bring the Lebanese penal system closer to the standards applied by abolitionist States.

MP Halimé El Kaakour was among the political figures who played a role in promoting this reform. The case had also benefited from decades of work by Lebanese lawyers, associations and activists opposed to the death penalty.

However, the vote was not unanimous. The parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah opposed abolition, according to the proceedings. This divergence recalls that the death penalty remains a sensitive political, legal and social issue in Lebanon, particularly when it concerns crimes that have caused many victims or breaches of national security.

Despite these oppositions, a parliamentary majority chose to abolish the death penalty. The enactment by Joseph Aoun on 17 August now makes this choice applicable and puts an end to the uncertainty that could still exist between the House’s vote and the completion of the constitutional procedure.

Lebanon had not executed anyone since 2004

Labolition of the death penalty in Lebanonin reality, a development that has been under way for more than two decades is formalizing. The last execution was on 19 January 2004, when three convicted persons had been executed in Roumieh prison. Two had been shot and the third hanged.

This episode had deeply revived the national debate on capital punishment. The 2004 executions had been the first in several years and were ultimately the last.

However, Lebanon had experienced a much more active period in the application of the death penalty in the 1990s. Between 1994 and 1998, under the chairmanship of Elias Hraoui, fourteen death sentences had been executed. This period was a more severe criminal policy, in a country still marked by the consequences of civil war and facing serious security problems.

Since the mid-2000s, the situation has changed dramatically. Successive governments have maintained a de facto moratorium. No legislation formally abolished the death penalty, but the procedures necessary for the execution of sentences were no longer completed.

This situation could continue, but it remained legally reversible. The courts continued to issue death sentences. Lebanon therefore remained considered a State with capital punishment in its legislation, even if it no longer applied it.

Act No. 68 specifically removes this contradiction. The country is no longer content with not executing convicted persons: it withdraws the death penalty from its legal system.

Why the moratorium was no longer enough

For twenty-two years, the moratorium prevented further execution. But that practice did not guarantee that the situation would be irreversible. The penalty remained available in law and could theoretically be reinstated if the political authorities decided to sign the necessary decrees.

In Lebanon, the execution of capital punishment required several institutional steps. The system had therefore created, in practice, an important political barrier. The lack of willingness to go through those stages had transformed the death penalty into a sentence imposed but not carried out.

This situation also produced a particular category of prisoners. Persons remained legally sentenced to death while knowing that an unwritten moratorium prevented their execution. Uncertainty could continue for years.

Abolition puts an end to this ambiguity. The question is no longer whether a president, a government or a minister will ever agree to relaunch executions. Capital punishment is no longer a punishment that the State can legally implement.

This transformation was one of the main objectives of the advocates of abolition. They considered that a moratorium, even if prolonged for several decades, remained more fragile than a legislative ban.

A consequence on international judicial cooperation

Reform also has a very concrete international dimension. The continuation of the death penalty could complicate Lebanese requests for extradition to States that refused to hand over a suspect to a country where he or she might face a death sentence.

That difficulty had been raised in the debates preceding the vote. Abolitionist countries regularly demand guarantees before accepting extradition. The requesting authorities must then undertake not to request or apply the death penalty against the person sought.

The case of Bulgaria had been mentioned in particular in the discussions on reform. The existence of the death penalty in Lebanese law could be an obstacle in some extradition cases.

Its removal simplifies this question. Of course, it does not guarantee that a Lebanese extradition request will be accepted, as the requested States consider many other criteria. But the risk of execution will no longer constitute the same legal obstacle.

This development can also bring Lebanon closer to the criminal norms applied by European countries, which have made abolition an important condition of their policy on fundamental rights and judicial cooperation.

A major decision in a judicial system in crisis

The symbolic importance of the reform does not remove the deep difficulties of Lebanese justice. Abolition comes as courts and prisons continue to face structural problems that have accumulated for several years.

Long pre-trial detention is one of the main difficulties. Detainees may wait for significant periods before their final judgement. The slow pace of proceedings directly feeds prison overcrowding.

Roumieh Prison remains the symbol of this crisis. Lebanese prisons are well above the capacity of several sites, while the financial resources of the prison administration remain limited.

These problems explain why Parliament has also dealt with a general amnesty law. The text adopted after the death penalty aimed, inter alia, at reducing some of the pressure on prisons, but had triggered a much more confrontational debate.

Critics stress that an amnesty can temporarily reduce the number of detainees without solving the causes of overcrowding. If judicial procedures remain slow, if pre-trial detention continues to increase and if prison infrastructure is not reformed, the same difficulties can quickly reappear.

The abolition of capital punishment and the prison crisis are therefore bound by the context, but they should not be confused. The first constitutes a lasting reform of the penal sanction. The second requires changes in the daily functioning of justice.

General amnesty should not be confused with abolition

The proximity of the two parliamentary votes may create confusion. Parliament adopted the abolition of the death penalty on 11 August, followed by a general amnesty law the following day. Yet their legal consequences are distinct.

The death penalty law lays down a permanent principle: the Lebanese State can no longer sentence a person to death. It therefore concerns both existing and future trials, in accordance with the procedure for applying the new text.

On the contrary, amnesty is based on criteria that define offences, convictions and detainees that may benefit from reduction or termination of sentence. Several serious crimes are excluded, including certain forms of premeditated murder, rape, trafficking, the financing of terrorism and crimes related to cooperation with Israel.

This difference is politically significant. Opponents of the death penalty did not necessarily demand the release of perpetrators of serious crimes. The abolitionist principle is that the State should not execute a convicted person, while maintaining the possibility of imposing a very long prison sentence.

The law promulgated by Joseph Aoun preserves precisely this punitive logic by replacing life imprisonment with execution.

A legal break after decades of debate

The issue of capital punishment has been going through Lebanese political and judicial life long before the moratorium began in 2004. It traditionally contrasts two conceptions of criminal justice.

Supporters of the death penalty invoked its deterrent value and the exceptional gravity of certain crimes. This argument retains a particular resonance in a country that has experienced civil war, political assassinations, attacks, armed clashes and deadly attacks against the army or security forces.

Abolitionists emphasize another principle: a miscarriage of justice becomes irreparable when the sentence has been enforced. They also consider life imprisonment to protect society without giving the State the power to kill a convicted person.

For more than 20 years, Lebanon had avoided finalizing this opposition. The implicit compromise was to retain the penalty in the texts while refusing to execute it.

The vote of 11 August and the promulgation of 17 August put an end to this compromise. The legislator has chosen abolition, and the President of the Republic has just completed the institutional process.

This development also places Lebanon in a particular position in the Middle East. According to the international agencies that had covered the vote, the country became the first in the region to abolish the death penalty entirely from its penal system. However, this qualification depends on the geographical scope chosen, as several territories or legal systems in the region have different situations.

Promulgation now opens the implementation phase

After the presidential signing, attention will now move towards the practical application of Law 68. The judicial authorities will have to integrate the abolition of capital punishment into ongoing proceedings and adapt the situation of persons already sentenced to death.

In particular, this step will have to clarify the precise consequences of replacing sentences for the approximately 85 convicted persons on death row before the reform. Their situation should be examined in accordance with the provisions of the new text and, where necessary, the corresponding court decisions should be adapted.

The courts will also have to apply the new maximum penalty to future cases. Prosecutors will no longer be able to demand execution and the courts will no longer be able to pronounce it on the basis of the old provisions.

Finally, the reform will affect judicial statistics, extradition requests and prison management. Replace the death penalty with life imprisonment means that the State must assume long-term responsibility for the detention of persons convicted of the most serious crimes. This reality directly raises the question of prison conditions, the capacity of prisons and the treatment of long sentences.

The day of 17 August 2026 nevertheless marks a clear legal break. Twenty-two years after the last three executions in Roumieh, the de facto moratorium now belongs to the past: Joseph Aoun has promulgated the law that removes the death penalty from Lebanese law. The next step will be its application to existing convictions and the adaptation of the courts to this new maximum penalty.