The High Constitutional Court of Madagascar validated and toughened on February 23 a bill passed by the country's Parliament. A sentence of chemical castration will now be automatically pronounced “against the perpetrators of rape committed against a child under ten years of age” The Minister of Justice, Landy Mbolatiana Randriamanantenasoa, defended herself to the AFP by declaring that Madagascar is "a sovereign country which has every right to modify its laws" The HCC magistrates even went further than the Parliamentarians' initial request.
The decision provoked the ire of certain associations who saw it as an inappropriate response.