The Legislative Council believes that the proposal does not fulfill its purpose, namely to suppress youth crime. The proposal may even have the opposite effect, writes TV4 Nyheterna.
"The fact that lowering the age of criminal responsibility can be assumed to increase juvenile crime and push it down to being committed by even younger children suggests that the proposal is counterproductive to its objectives," it writes in a statement.
It also writes that there is a risk of wrongful deprivation of liberty of children and that the proposal is in conflict with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In a written comment to TT, Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (M) says that there is a great need to overhaul the system for young people who commit serious crimes, and that the sentences with today's youth discounts will in many cases be very low.
"It is a reality that today's system neither succeeds in protecting people from life-threatening violence, providing redress to victims of crime, nor in breaking the destructive patterns that in many cases exist around these children," writes the Minister of Justice.
He notes that the Legislative Council does not object to several of the proposals in its report, but is very critical of the proposal to temporarily lower the age of criminal responsibility for serious crimes.
"We will now review the Legislative Council's statement carefully and then return with information on how we will take the proposals forward," writes Strömmer.
