When and why was the death penalty abolished?
The main reason why the death penalty was abolished in the Russian Federation is its accession to the Council of Europe, an international organization designed to protect human rights.
The final ban on the use of capital punishment was adopted in 2009.
Yeltsin's decree on the gradual abolition of the death penalty
In 1996, Yeltsin's decree was published, ordering the Government to prepare the sixth protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for submission to the State Duma.
Article 1. Abolition of the death penalty
The death penalty is abolished. No one can be sentenced to death or executed.
Protocol No. 6
From a legal point of view, the situation has not changed dramatically, since the legislature has not yet adopted an act that would prohibit the death penalty. In fact, in order to carry out capital punishment, a decision of the President was necessary, which he subsequently never made.
To be fair, this protocol was signed in 1997, but for it to fully enter into force it is necessary to adopt a federal law on ratification.
The bill has been under consideration in the State Duma since 1999. No serious progress has occurred since then.
At the moment, Russia is obliged to comply with the provisions on the abolition of the death penalty - this is required by the Vienna Convention, which establishes the obligation “not to deprive a treaty of its object and purpose before entering into force.”
Moratorium of the Constitutional Court on death sentences
According to Art. 20 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, an exceptional measure of punishment can only be applied if the right to a trial by jury is granted. However, the possibility of holding such meetings was not ensured throughout the country. In this regard, on February 2, 1999, by decision of the Constitutional Court, a moratorium on the death penalty was introduced.
In 2010, the right to trial by jury was ensured in all regions of Russia. But in 2009, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation already issued a ruling that finally closed the possibility of using the death penalty.
Thus, the Russian Federation is bound by the requirement of Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties...
Determination of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of November 19, 2009 N 1344-O-R
In addition, the judges noted that in connection with such a long moratorium, citizens had guarantees of the right not to be subjected to exceptional punishment.
Thus, it is not possible to return the death penalty to the Russian Federation. This decision of the Constitutional Court is not subject to appeal.
The games of democracy are over!
The suspension of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe and PACE is “a good opportunity to restore a number of important institutions to prevent particularly serious crimes in the country,” said Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev . According to him, he means the death penalty, “which, by the way, is actively used in the USA and China.” “This is a good reason to finally slam the door and forget about these senseless almshouses forever,” noted the deputy chairman.
In turn, the head of the constitutional committee of the Federation Council, Andrei Klishas , recalled that the moratorium on the death penalty in Russia was introduced by the Constitutional Court (CC), and no government body can reconsider this position.
Is the death penalty necessary in Russia?
This issue is extremely controversial, but arguments against the use of the death penalty are increasingly being made.
First, scientific research is extremely skeptical about claims about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. For example, in countries where the death penalty has been abolished, sociologists have not noticed a surge in murders.
Secondly, the innocent suffer, because the courts also make mistakes. History knows a considerable number of cases when persons who were not involved in the commission of a crime were sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
Thirdly, the implementation of the death sentence is not economically profitable. Such convicts are usually kept in solitary confinement under intense surveillance and are not allowed to work. Most often, special injections are used to carry out punishment, which pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to supply, not to mention the expensive prices.
History of the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty
This past week, A Just Russia deputies introduced a bill on capital punishment for terrorists to the State Duma. There have been several precedents in world history for the return of the death penalty. Read more about them in the RIA Novosti material. At the moment, capital punishment is actively used in 37 countries, and in another six countries it is used in special cases such as crimes committed in wartime. In other states, there is either a moratorium or the death penalty, although not legally abolished, has nevertheless not existed in practice over the past 10 years or more. It is worth noting that among the states that actively use the death penalty are the two largest economies in the world - the USA and China.
Proponents of the death penalty usually say that the threat of being put in the electric chair or receiving a lethal injection is a much more obvious motivation not to commit a crime than the danger of being in prison, but still alive. They also point out that it is unethical to keep those responsible for the death of people for life at the expense of taxpayers.
Opponents point to the existence of judicial errors, which, in the case of the death penalty, can no longer be corrected, and to the existence of international agreements. The abolition of the death penalty, for example, is a condition for joining international organizations such as the Council of Europe and supranational institutions such as the European Union.
However, in practice there are also precedents of “reverse movement”, when countries that banned capital punishment return to it again.
Pakistan
In 2015, Pakistani authorities completely lifted the moratorium on the death penalty that had been in effect in the republic since 2008.
First, the ban on executing criminals convicted of terrorism was lifted. This happened in December 2014, after nine militants from the militant organization Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (collaborating with the Afghan Taliban) attacked a military school in Peshawar, Pakistan. 145 people died, most of whom were cadets aged 10 to 18 years.
And already in March 2015, the country’s leadership lifted the moratorium on all crimes. “The procedure for executing death sentences is strictly defined by law; they can only be activated when all legal remedies have been exhausted and petitions for clemency <...> are rejected by the President,” reads a document from the Pakistani Ministry of Interior.
According to human rights activists Amnesty International, one hundred people were hanged in Pakistan in the four months after the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted.
Indonesia
Due to its geographical location, Indonesia has always been particularly attractive to international crime syndicates and drug traffickers. Drug couriers can enter this country in different ways: through Iran, drugs can also be imported in transit from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, as well as by sea through China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In this regard, Indonesian anti-drug legislation is one of the strictest in the world; the import of prohibited substances into this country is often punishable by death.
For 5 years (2008-2013), Indonesia had an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty, but it was lifted with the advent of the new president, the current head of the country, Joko Widodo, who stated that anyone who commits a drug-related crime will not be pardoned .
Authorities say harsh punishments for such crimes were dictated by the country's situation - in 2015, the National Anti-Drug Agency reported 33 Indonesians dying from drugs every day.
In April 2015, authorities carried out the death sentence on eight members of the Bali Nine - one Indonesian and seven foreigners (only Filipino citizen Mary Jane Veloso received a stay of execution) - convicted of heroin smuggling. The execution drew condemnation from Brazil and Australia, whose citizens were sentenced to death - Brasilia and Canberra recalled their ambassadors from Jakarta.
USA
The United States is the only Western country that uses the death penalty. It is a legal punishment in two parallel jurisdictions - both at the federal level and at the local level (in 32 states).
From 1967 to 1977, every state in the country had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty following the high-profile lawsuit Furman v. State of Georgia. A state court ruled that Fuhrman was guilty of armed robbery and the murder of the owner of the house he was trying to rob and should be executed. At the same time, Furman himself stated at the trial that, while running away from the owner of the house, he accidentally shot him, hitting the trigger.
Fuhrman's appeal reached the US Supreme Court, where the judges were divided and a general decision had to be made, which was extremely rare. In the end, by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court found that the use of the death penalty in Fuhrman's case was "arbitrary and inappropriate" and violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the American Constitution and was therefore "cruel and unusual punishment." This decision did not mean that the highest court had banned the death penalty in principle, but only pointed out inconsistencies in the legislation and legal procedures.
Thirty-seven states were dissatisfied with the decision in the Furman case, and after its adoption, these jurisdictions changed and supplemented the legislation, eliminating the controversial issues pointed out by the Supreme Court from the death penalty procedure.
In 1977, Georgia imposed the death penalty under new laws, and the case Gregg v. Georgia went to the Supreme Court, which determined the rights of juries in sentencing and the procedure for hearing appeals, recognizing that the death sentence could be constitutional. Executions have resumed.
The US Supreme Court in 1977 banned the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman, determining that the extreme penalty is applicable only in cases of murder.
In 2008, the Supreme Court stopped states from imposing the death penalty for child rape. After Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court effectively left local courts with the power to grant capital negotiations only in cases of capital crimes and treason. In 2014, 35 death sentences were carried out in the United States.
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- If a person is wrongly convicted, then that’s it, hello - he’s no longer with us. But our court is not infallible. This alone is enough to extend the moratorium on the death penalty,” Svanidze added.
Zorkin warns
The vice-president of the Russian branch of the International Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, executive secretary of the public monitoring commission of the city of Moscow, Ivan Melnikov, has a similar opinion.
— I am not a supporter of the death penalty. There are obligations to international law that do not give Russia the opportunity to lift the moratorium. I am opposed to the very fact of killing a person, even for the most serious crime. It is quite enough to isolate a person from society for life. Taking a person’s life is not good even from a religious point of view,” the human rights activist noted.
He believes that in his book, Zorkin is actually trying to warn those politicians who talk about the need to return the death penalty in Russia. In particular, State Duma deputy Sultan Khamzaev recently called for capital punishment for pedophiles.
“But by refusing the moratorium, we will violate the “Right to Life” article of the Constitution. Not everything is going smoothly in our laws. Deputies from different factions can agree that Russia needs to withdraw from international treaties, violate the Constitution, and so on. And the head of the Constitutional Court warns against this,” Melnikov clarified.
Aggravating circumstance: what will change in the Criminal Code after toughening punishment for torture
The death penalty: from the USSR to modern Russia
Soviet Union
The first death sentence in Soviet Russia was announced on June 21, 1918 against the head of the Baltic Sea Naval Forces, Alexei Shchastny. He was charged with “counter-revolutionary agitation, connivance with it in the navy, failure to comply with the orders of the Soviet government and systematic discrediting it in the eyes of the sailors.” The members of the tribunal, after a five-hour meeting, recognized it as proven that Shchastny “consciously and clearly prepared the conditions for a counter-revolutionary coup d’etat” (see “The First Death Sentence in Soviet Russia”). In both the USSR and Russia, the death penalty was carried out by execution in pre-trial detention centers and prisons - which is what happened with Shchastny (see “The stones should not be too large so that the convicted person does not die from one or two blows”).
From 1920 to 1950, capital punishment was imposed for a variety of crimes: concluding unprofitable contracts, issuing an unjust verdict, illegal detention, taking a bribe, mismanagement of labor in wartime, failure to fulfill obligations under a contract, theft from government warehouses. According to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922, it was forbidden to shoot children under 18 years of age and pregnant women (see “The last bullet for a woman according to the verdict of a USSR court”). At the same time, the death penalty was applied even extrajudicially.
24 422
– so many death sentences were handed down in the USSR from 1962 to 1989, of which 2,355 (9.6%) were pardoned
After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, a course was taken towards liberalization and humanization of public life. In 1960, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR came into force, according to which the death penalty could be imposed for looting, encroachment on the life of a people's vigilante, voluntary surrender, treason, taking a bribe by an official on a particularly large scale, violating the rules on foreign exchange transactions on a large scale and other crimes. Two years later, the death penalty was reinstated for rape, bribery and a number of economic crimes. The head of state could decide to pardon, but did so quite rarely. In case of pardon, the execution was replaced by imprisonment for 25 years or life imprisonment.
Since the late 1980s, the number of death sentences began to decline. And the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 even established: “the death penalty, pending its abolition, may be established by federal law as an exceptional measure of punishment for particularly serious crimes against life, providing the accused with the right to have his case considered by a court with the participation of a jury.” As a result, 157 death sentences were imposed in 1993, 160 in 1994, and 141 in 1995.
Should the death penalty be brought back?
On February 28, 1996, Russia joined the Council of Europe, in connection with which it undertook to sign and ratify the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, abolishing the death penalty - which was subsequently done. On May 16, 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree “On the gradual reduction of the use of the death penalty in connection with Russia’s entry into the Council of Europe.” In the Moscow “Butyrka” on August 2, 1996, Sergei Golovkin was executed, accused of almost 40 rapes and murders of boys in the Moscow region - according to some reports, he “closed” the Russian execution list (see “The last death penalty in Butyrka. For that Golovkin was shot").
On April 16, 1997, the Russian Federation signed Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, according to which “the death penalty is abolished. No one can be sentenced to death or executed; a state may provide in its legislation for the death penalty for acts committed during war or when there is an imminent threat of war.” The State Duma was supposed to ratify it by May 1999, but never did so.
Death penalty technologies and their failures
Formally, the document for the Russian Federation has not entered into force, but according to international rules, after signing the treaty, the country must behave as if it had been ratified - therefore, a moratorium has been imposed on the death penalty in Russia since April 16, 1997.
In February 1999, the Constitutional Court adopted Resolution No. 3-P, which prohibited the use of the death penalty until jury trials appeared throughout Russia. This was supposed to happen on January 1, 2010, when the jury would be formed in the Chechen Republic.
Moratorium (Latin moratorium - “slowing down”) is a postponement of the fulfillment of contractual obligations or abstention from their execution.
Thus, on January 1, 2010, the imposed moratorium was supposed to expire, but, despite the appearance of a jury trial in Chechnya, the Constitutional Court issued ruling No. 1344-O-R, which concluded: “For 10 years, a comprehensive moratorium on the death penalty has been in effect in the Russian Federation . During this time, stable guarantees of the right not to be subjected to the death penalty have been formed and a legitimate constitutional and legal regime has emerged, within the framework of which - taking into account international legal trends and the obligations assumed by Russia - an irreversible process is taking place aimed at the abolition of the death penalty as an exceptional a measure of punishment that is temporary in nature and designed only for a certain transitional period” (see “Constitutional Court on the prohibition of the death penalty in Russia”).
Modern Russia
Despite the ban on the use of capital punishment, the provision on it is still contained in the Criminal Code. According to the code, a criminal can be shot for murder with aggravating circumstances (Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code), genocide (Article 357 of the Criminal Code), encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure (Article 277 of the Criminal Code), or a law enforcement officer (Article 317 Criminal Code) or a person conducting justice or preliminary investigation (Article 295 of the Criminal Code). The Criminal Code states: this measure of punishment is exceptional and cannot be assigned to those who committed crimes under the age of 18, women and men who have reached 60 years of age at the time of sentencing. The procedure for executing the death penalty is established by Ch. 23 PEC. The provisions on the death penalty will be excluded from the current legislation (or established for actions committed during war or under the imminent threat of war) if Protocol No. 6 is ratified.
Geography of death 2012: how many people are executed in different countries
Despite the unequivocal position of the Constitutional Court - the death penalty is not used in Russia - disputes about it do not subside to this day. President Vladimir Putin said during a Direct Line in 2013 that he doubted the effectiveness of the measure. “The hand itself reaches for a fountain pen to sign some documents on the return of the death penalty, to ask deputies about this, but we need to talk with specialists, with criminologists. I understand the indignation of citizens and the desire to punish criminals. The question is efficiency,” Putin said. At the same time, he recalled the existence of life imprisonment and assured that “the conditions of detention there are not sanatorium-resort.” In the same year, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, said that he had nothing against the return of capital punishment: “I am afraid of incurring the wrath of opponents of the death penalty, but if not as a minister, but as an ordinary citizen, I would not see anything reprehensible in such punishment "
In May 2015, the State Duma opposed the return of the death penalty as a punishment for terrorists. At the same time, at the end of 2015, the chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, stated: “I personally support the death penalty, first of all as a person.” In his opinion, those who commit serious crimes have no place on earth (see “Bastrykin spoke out in favor of lifting the moratorium on the death penalty”).
Human rights activists counted a record number of executions in 2015
In January 2022, the head of the Duma Committee on Legislation and State Construction, Pavel Krasheninnikov, proposed removing all references to the death penalty from the Criminal Code. He believes that in fact this type of punishment no longer exists in the Russian Federation, since it not only is not applied, but also cannot be imposed by the court (see “Krasheninnikov proposed removing the death penalty from the Criminal Code”). In May 2022, the chairman of the Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, said at the VII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum: “In Russia, a constitutional and legal regime has developed for a long time, as a result of which citizens have received the right not to be sentenced to death.”
In the summer of 2022, the head of the Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Vasily Piskarev, proposed imposing death sentences on terrorists, but with a delay until the ban on them was lifted in Europe. “We are moving towards humanization, but I would like that in cases where we are talking about especially serious crimes, when a huge number of people suffer, when people die from explosions, from terrorist attacks, it would still be prescribed in the verdict that it is necessary to apply this particular punishment, but delay execution until there is general awareness that this measure must be applied,” he said (see “The Duma proposed applying the death penalty with a delay to terrorists”).
This year, the discussion about lifting the moratorium on the death penalty began after the murder of a nine-year-old girl in Saratov. The tragedy became the reason for a survey of the country's residents, which was initiated by the lower house of parliament. About 80% of respondents supported the return of the death penalty for child killers and pedophiles. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that such an issue is not being discussed in the Kremlin.
Death sentence: how justice turned to capital punishment in 2022
All Pravo.ru experts reacted negatively to the idea of restoring the death penalty in Russia. “Firstly, I believe that not a single person, even those who have committed the most terrible crimes, deserves such punishment. Secondly, in Russia there are big problems with law enforcement, and punishment is not always imposed on the person who actually committed the crime. If the death penalty is applied, it is no longer possible to correct the mistake,” says senior partner of AB Law Office ZKS Law Office ZKS Federal Rating. Criminal Law group 16th place by revenue per lawyer (less than 30 lawyers) 41st place by revenue Company profile Andrey Grivtsov. In his opinion, it is necessary, on the contrary, to exclude such punishment from the Criminal Code: “This would be a good step, indicating the liberal direction of legislative thought.” “The judicial system is in a deep crisis, and under such conditions, the introduction of the death penalty would lead to irreparable mistakes,” says lawyer, partner at Capital Legal Services Capital Legal Services Federal Rating. PPP group/Infrastructure projects group Arbitration proceedings (medium and small disputes - mid market) group Land law/Commercial real estate/Construction group Intellectual property (Registration) group Dispute resolution in courts of general jurisdiction group Antimonopoly law (including disputes) group Bankruptcy (including disputes ) (mid market) group Corporate law/Mergers and acquisitions (high market) group Private capital group Intellectual property (Consulting) group Tax consulting and disputes (Tax consulting) Company profile Irina Onikienko. “Consideration of the death penalty as a method of retribution will lead to a revival of the principle of talion. The state should not deprive someone of life, this is a very bad message to society, which says that the violent deprivation of a person’s life is possible,” said the vice-president of the Leningrad Region Bar Association, member of the FPA Commission on Ethics and Standards, chairman of the First Lawyers’ Association. office" Denis Laktionov.
Pavel Krasheninnikov spoke about the history of the death penalty
Lawyer MCA Knyazev and partners Knyazev and partners Federal rating. group Criminal law Company profile Rustam Zhane suggested delving into the statistics of various studies, which began in the 19th century by A.F. Kistyakovsky. “For example, a study by Roger Hood commissioned by the UN in 1988, updated in 2002, proves with statistical data that the death penalty does not reduce the number of murders to a greater extent than life sentences. Moreover, in the 20th century, criminological science around the world has accumulated a considerable amount of empirical data indicating the lack of effectiveness of the death penalty. For example, according to statistics, only 5-8% of murders are pre-planned,” Janet said. According to UN reports, in countries where the death penalty is allowed, crimes for which it is imposed are more likely to occur. “Historical experience has shown that the presence of such a punishment as the death penalty does not affect the crime rate. And the “theory of intimidation” and the “theory of tightening” contain research errors,” Laktionov confirmed. He recalled: refusal of the moratorium will lead to exclusion from the Council of Europe and will deprive our citizens of the opportunity to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. At the same time, Russia is the leader in the number of complaints and decisions made by this court (see “The ECHR summed up the results of 2022. Russia is the leader in the number of complaints and violations”).
Assuming that the reinstatement of the death penalty is inevitable, experts suggest that it should only be used if cases are tried by jury. “This may be at least some guarantee of objectivity. Jury trials have proven themselves excellent in Russia,” says Onikienko.
- Alina Mikhailova
Return of the death penalty: political game or fair punishment?
Does lifting the moratorium mean becoming a mediator of murder?
But is it worth waiting for the return of the death penalty in Russia? By the way, the Soviet government abolished the death penalty twice and returned it twice. For the first time - in October 1917. Soon execution returned to the USSR as capital punishment. From May 1947 to January 1950, the death penalty was abolished in the USSR for the second time, but as soon as it was reintroduced “at the request of the working people” for “traitors to the Motherland, spies and saboteurs,” they began to shoot those convicted on political charges again.
In 2009, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation adopted a ruling that prohibited any court in our country from imposing and executing the death penalty. But options for lifting the moratorium still remain, only with certain consequences for the country’s position on the world stage.
Kuzbass psychologist Matvey Lovtsov, in turn, believes that the death penalty is not retribution or restoration of justice, but a demonstration of force on the part of the authorities.
– The point is that there is a crime and there is punishment, be that as it may. But, in fact, taking a life for a life is unfair, from an objective point of view. Here a rather reasonable question arises: “The authorities take the life of a person because he has already taken someone else’s life, why then does no one take the life of the punisher, since life is worth living?” That is, in fairness - the law is written equally for everyone. And if it is forbidden to kill, then for everyone, including the authorities. That is why it is normal for a person to have dissonance in his head when thinking about the death penalty,” the psychologist noted.
And this dissonance does not just arise. People began to think about the justice of capital punishment. Thus, we can turn to the modern realities of the bastion of world democracy, where in 24 out of 50 states the death penalty is allowed and practiced - the United States. Today, in several states, thousands of prisoners are facing the death penalty for several years because they chose death by injection. But for several years now, pharmacists have been boycotting this system and refusing to supply injections to American prisons.
Based on this, we can conclude that in modern realities many are of the opinion that supporting the death penalty means being an intermediary of murder. After all, killing a murderer is the same crime. A punishment that violates a person’s right to life cannot be called justice.
Who's for, who's against
As it turned out, not only city residents are of the opinion that a simple prison sentence is not enough for murderers and rapists of children. Saratov Ombudsman for Children's Rights Tatyana Zagorodnyaya spoke in favor of toughening punishment for such criminals.
This is a heinous crime for which there is no justification! I spoke out earlier, but I want to say right away that this is the natural impulse of any person; an exhaustive set of measures must be taken so that the killer is held accountable for his actions to the fullest extent of the law! And the law should be tightened for this category of cases. Tatiana Zagorodnyaya
children's ombudsman in the region
The voices of some politicians sounded more radical. For example, State Duma deputy from the Saratov region Evgeny Primakov spoke in favor of lifting the moratorium on the death penalty. On his page on the social network, he wrote that he wants to “restore the death penalty” in Russia for a number of violations of the law: “Crimes against children and the helpless, terrorism, betrayal of the Motherland and corruption on a scale that threatens the country, which is tantamount to betrayal.”
His colleague Olga Alimova expressed a similar opinion. The deputy believes that crimes similar to what happened in Saratov will continue from time to time until the punishment is made as severe as possible. She also spoke about this on her page on the social network.
Until the inevitability of punishment sets in in the country, this kind of thing will return to our cities and villages. If the death penalty punished pedophiles, murderers, rapists, terrorists, then grief would not come to our homes. Played with democracy and tolerance. Return the death penalty to Russia! Olga Alimova
State Duma deputy
Journalist and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov shares a similar position. “I am for the death penalty. This is my point of view, which I have been defending for many years,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.
At the same time, not everyone is ready to advocate such a radical measure. For example, State Duma deputy Olga Batalina noted that such decisions should not be made rashly.
Everyone’s nerves are strained to the limit, emotions are off the charts - they demand the return of the death penalty, appoint a culprit, post photos without knowing who. No need! Serious decisions - only with a calm mind. Olga Batalina
State Duma deputy
Batalina is echoed by LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In his Telegram channel, he recalled the costs of the death penalty: “There is no point in executing terrorists, for example, they voluntarily go to their death, this cannot scare them. Prison is worse for them. In addition, we are not immune to errors. There is a well-known case when another person was executed for one of the crimes of the maniac Chikatilo, and this is not an isolated case.”
Photo: Investigative Committee
Prerequisites for abolishing execution
It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of when the death penalty was abolished in Russia. And in general, is there the death penalty in Russia today?
Legally, no one canceled it. It exists, and it is spelled out in the current version of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In Art. 44 Among the types of criminal punishment, the death penalty is present. A Art. 59 is even called “Death Penalty”.
The beginning of the process of non-application of the death penalty began during the reign of Boris Yeltsin. In 1996, he issued a decree to gradually reduce the use of execution as capital punishment.
To do this, it was necessary to develop a draft law on the country’s accession to the International Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms No. 6. To this day it has not been ratified. This means that the document has no legal force in the country.
“This is Russia’s obligation within the Council of Europe.” Could the death penalty be brought back?
The head of the Constitutional Committee of the Federation Council, Andrei Klishas, commented on the words of the Chairman of the Constitutional Court (CC) of the Russian Federation, Valery Zorkin, that the death penalty could be restored in Russia. His words are reported by RIA Novosti.
According to the senator, this issue is more of a moral issue than a legal one.
“It’s a question of whether society is willing to accept responsibility for killing a person (and the inevitable mistakes that come with it) or not,” Klishas said.
The day before, the Kommersant newspaper reported
, that the Chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin in his new book “Constitutional Justice: Procedure and Meaning” does not exclude the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty in the Russian Federation.
According to Zorkin, at one time the introduction of this moratorium became “a concession to values unusual for the Russian national legal consciousness,” the newspaper reports.
Zorkin notes that in Russia a sociocultural situation has developed that is different from the “old democracies of Europe.” At the same time, the book says, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has shown that it is ready to overcome stereotypes of mass consciousness - as in the case of the abolition of the death penalty.
A moratorium on the death penalty has been in effect in the Russian Federation since 1996, after the country joined the Council of Europe and assumed the corresponding obligations. In 1999 and 2009, an indefinite ban on executions was confirmed by decisions of the Constitutional Court. Formally, the court did not abolish the death penalty; only the legislature can do this.
“The fact that the Constitutional Court made a decision making it impossible to use the death penalty in Russia at this historical stage of its development does not exclude the possibility of returning to this measure of punishment in the future,” Zorkin believes.
The issue of the death penalty cannot be completely closed while intentional murders are being committed, the judge adds. “I really hope that our country’s departure from the law towards those moral and religious views that stand for a fundamental rejection of the death penalty will be successful for Russia,” sums up the head of the Constitutional Court.
Constitutional lawyer Olga Podoplelova, in a conversation with Kommersant, stated that the abolition of the death penalty in Russia rests on the obligations assumed by the country upon joining the Council of Europe, and not on the decision of the Constitutional Court. The actual ban on the death penalty for members of the Council of Europe is introduced by the second article of the Convention, signed by the participants of this association.
Even the hypothetical withdrawal of the Russian Federation from Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention (Moscow did not ratify this protocol) cannot justify the return of the death penalty in Russia, the lawyer concluded.
On December 22, State Duma deputy Sultan Khamzaev proposed returning the death penalty for pedophiles. At a plenary session on December 21, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill providing for life imprisonment for those convicted of rape of minors.
Speaking about the law, the parliamentarian added: “I believe that such scum should bear even stricter responsibility.” According to Khamzaev, such a crime should be punishable by capital punishment in the form of the death penalty. He also noted that not only repeat pedophiles, but also those who committed such a crime for the first time should receive the maximum sentence.
Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation Andrei Klishas called the idea of allowing the death penalty, even for pedophiles, unfair speculation.
“This is all dishonest speculation. There is a position of the Constitutional Court. The death penalty is not used in Russia. This is a clear legal position and international obligations of Russia within the Council of Europe,” the senator emphasized.
Alexander Brod, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, considers the return of the death penalty to be an ineffective measure.
“Life imprisonment is a harsher measure than the death penalty, [which] can lead to chaos, given the distortions in our justice system. Innocent people may suffer,” a human rights activist told Gazeta.Ru.
