The Legislative Assembly of the People of Burkina Faso adopted a new Penal Code on Tuesday, October 20, in Ouagadougou, which reinstates the death penalty, eight years after its abolition for common law crimes.
The bill was approved unanimously by the 71 voters during a session chaired by Ousmane Bougouma, according to the official report of Parliament. The text comprises more than 900 articles divided into nine books, 33 titles, and 97 chapters. Its review resulted in more than 700 amendments, both substantive and procedural.
Capital offenses must notably include terrorism, espionage, treason, parricide, as well as the importation of expired or prohibited products that have caused death, according to the list provided by the public news agency and reported by several media outlets.
The Burkinabe Ministry of Justice presents this reform as a means to strengthen public order, security, and the protection of persons and property. The text also provides for a procedure for carrying out the death penalty, although the official sources consulted do not specify at this stage the methods or the timeline for its implementation.
The vote revisits the reform of May 31, 2018, when the National Assembly abolished the death penalty from the Penal Code for common law crimes. The last recorded execution in the country dates back to 1988, according to Amnesty International.
The government had approved the principle of reinstating this penalty in December 2025 before submitting the bill to Parliament. The vote on October 20 takes place in a country under military rule since the coup d’état of September 2022. The members of the People’s Legislative Assembly were not elected by universal suffrage.
Amnesty International had called on the authorities to abandon the project, considering that the death penalty constitutes an irreversible violation of the right to life and does not have a deterrent effect superior to other punishments. The organization had also pointed out that Burkina Faso had not carried out any executions for nearly four decades.
The new Penal Code is not limited to the death penalty. The parliamentary report also mentions the re-criminalization of press offenses, the limitation of prison sentences to thirty years in criminal matters, and the establishment of fines proportional to the amount embezzled for acts of corruption.
