Provocation as a Partial Pretext and its Effect on the Principle of Equality in The Jordanian Penal Code

The penal legislator intended to combat femicide on the grounds of reputation and social consideration when it comes to an act that violates the family's status, which is called honor crimes by the media. He added paragraph (b) to Article 98 of the Jordanian Penal Code No. 27 of the year 2017, in which the provisions of the mitigating excuse for a fit of anger. Drafting the language of paragraph (b) in a way that prevents the application of a mitigating excuse, except in the case of flagrante delicto fornication or unlawful bedding, and the formulation of paragraph (b) does not explicitly agree with the principle of equality because it depends on the gender of the victim, and this is a defect considering that equality must have the same measure and it applies to all similar cases, the penalties will differ according to the gender of the victim. If she is a female, the killer does not benefit from the mitigating excuse, while if the slain is male, the killer would benefit from the mitigating excuse as a result of provocation. The application of Article 98 in its current form will lead to imbalance in judicial rulings, and this will lead to unrest, because the murders under a fit of anger are not limited to honor crimes, but some of them are due to physical assault and beating, and some of them are for financial or personal reasons or perhaps domestic violence, damage, or other reasons. Article 98, after its amendment, made the gender of the victim the criterion for applying the mitigating excuse regardless of the reason for anger. Article 98 referred to the application of the mitigating excuse to Article 340, where the offender benefits from the mitigating excuse if the murder occurred against a male, whatever the cause of the severe anger, while the offender does not benefit from a mitigating excuse if the killing is committed against a female, even if the cause of the killing is not related to honor crimes, and this is considered discrimination inconsistent with the principle of equality.