Poland set to impose chemical castration after outrage over incest case

Poland, enraged by a shocking case of incest, is set to become the first country in the European Union to give judges the right to impose chemical castration on convicted paedophiles.

Although the plan has drawn overwhelming public support — 84 per cent of Poles approve, according to a survey conducted for Dziennik newspaper — it has also sparked criticism from liberal politicians and doctors who argue that forced castration violates fundamental human rights and debases the medical profession.

"I don't think you can call such individuals — such creatures — human beings," said Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, in an emotional outburst after the incest case came to light. "Therefore I don't think you can talk about human rights in such a case."

A 45-year-old man was arrested in Poland a fortnight ago after being accused of fathering two children by his young daughter; the Polish press compared it with the case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who kept his daughter prisoner for two decades, sexually abusing her and creating a secret family.

The fury of the Prime Minister is now being translated into law. The Health and Justice ministries have been working on a draft that is likely to be presented to Cabinet as early as next month. All the indications are that the law will be passed by Parliament where there is a clear majority for punitive castration.

Britain, encouraged by apparently encouraging results in Scandinavia, is to offer testosterone-reducing medication to sexual offenders before they are freed from jail. Germany has a similar scheme and connects the medication to therapy: the offender has to volunteer for both courses of treatment.

"This isn't part of the punishment, but aims to reduce the likelihood that they will need to be punished again," said Professor Don Grubin, a Newcastle university criminal psychiatrist, involved in co-ordinating the British scheme.

But the Government of Mr Tusk — until now viewed as much more socially liberal than his predecessor, Jaroslaw Kaczynski — is determined to make the administration of libido-lowering drugs compulsory if there is a risk of sexual offences being repeated. Judges, after consulting doctors, will make it part of their sentencing.

"I want Poland to have the strictest possible legislation against criminals who rape children, it is as simple as that," said Mr Tusk. The Justice Minister, Zbigniew Cwiakalski, who is the main architect of the new law, argues that priorities have to be changed in dealing with crimes against children.

"Everyone talks about the rights of criminals, but what about the rights of the victims?" he told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, "Where is the safety and health of our children? We have the right to use measures that will protect the public."

But critics complain that such a law would violate the constitution, which forbids physical or cruel punishment. Others doubt that merely administering castration drugs will solve the problem. Christoph Joseph Ahlers, a sexual psychologist who helped found a Berlin project to teach paedophiles to control their urges, stresses that "even physically castrated men can offend again" unless they receive psychotherapy.

"Medical treatment must serve the patient rather than the public," said Marek Safjan, a Polish psychiatrist and expert on bio-ethics. "If not we risk a return to the kind of compulsory sterilisation of mentally ill patients that was carried out in Sweden as recently as the 1970s."

The Government is planning to expand powers provided for under the Mental Health Protection Act. This currently allows for "direct coercive measures" in carrying out necessary medical procedures — a patient for example can be held down in order to inject him with prescribed medication. The new law will make chemical castration a "necessary medical procedure" if a sexually disturbed person is seen as posing a risk to other people's health.

That still leaves many doctors feeling uneasy because it changes the terms of their relationship with their patients. They complain that too many medical and psychological problems are being lumped together — there is some doubt for example as to whether the man arrested earlier this month for abusing his daughter was a paedophile — and that chemical castration does not always work effectively.

Mr Cwiakalski said that chemical castration is not tantamount to surgical castration — "it is a reversible process" — and does not therefore violate the constitution. The drugs most frequently used in chemical castration are anti-depressants and a progestin known under the name Depo-Provera.

Some American states, notably California, have made administration of the drugs a condition for parole among convicted paedophiles. But the idea of punitive castration is regarded by many European Union politicians as a violation of the spirit of the EU.

"I don't believe that compulsory castration is a penalty that is compatible with modern criminal law," said Klaus Haensch, an expert on EU constitutional law.

He concedes though that there is not much that the EU can do about it. Criminal law is up to the nation states, apart from the Europe-wide ban on the death sentence. Poles do however have the right to challenge the law in the European Court of Human Rights. (from BBC news)

Seems like the bloody right idea to me...