Geneva: Grand Council grants pardon against commission's advice
Geneva's Grand Council pardoned a young man convicted of knife assault, despite an unfavourable opinion from its Pardon Commission. The convicted man, suffering from cancer, had endured a lengthy diagnostic odyssey in prison.
Geneva: Grand Council grants pardon against commission's advice
On 7 May, deputies of Geneva's Grand Council made an unprecedented decision by granting a pardon to a young incarcerated man, even though the competent authority had issued an unfavourable opinion. This situation remains exceptional in the canton, notes the newspaper Le Temps.
The beneficiary, aged 28 and father of a family, was serving a four-year prison sentence for having used a weapon during an altercation in Grand-Lancy. He had already completed more than half of his time in detention at the Orbe plain penitentiary.
His time behind bars became a medical nightmare. For seven long months, he suffered severe pain without prison doctors diagnosing the true cause of his suffering. He was simply given painkillers. It was only in July 2023, during an emergency medical evacuation, that advanced testicular cancer was discovered, with metastases affecting the lungs and lymph nodes. After surgery and tumour extraction, he had obtained a sentence suspension to undertake intensive chemotherapy treatment in four series.
The cantonal parliamentarians chose to cancel the remainder of his sentence, each speaking in good conscience. In Switzerland, such political clemency remains an extremely rare event, especially when it goes against the established recommendation.
Source: Le Temps