Tanya Dzyadok
As you might know already, Ukraine is a young state, as it only became an independent country in 1991. Since then our government has been trying to work out, pass, and eventually adopt different reforms and legislative acts. But it is a long-lasting process and requires a lot of debate, discussion and reasonable argument. Unfortunately, we still used to live according to the Civil Code of early 1960’s of Soviet Ukrainian Republic because it took already 10 years for our statesmen to argue on this very important legislative act. Just for your information, the project of the new Civil Code has already passed three readings, but it had not come into effect yet – the reason is our President’s veto.
With regard to the Criminal Code of Ukraine I can say that we are just starting to regulate our life in compliance with the new code. It was fortunately adopted on April 5, 2001, and came into effect as of September 1, 2001. Actually, in June and July of 2001, after several years of debates, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a package of laws on judicial and legal reforms. The new legislation, which was intended to bring Ukraine’s legislation into conformity with Council of Europe's standards, included a new Criminal Code and a Code of Criminal procedure as well as series of laws which amended existing legislation relating to the issues of judiciary, the procuracy, the police and pre-trial detention. Accordingly, in compliance with the Criminal Code of Ukraine effective as of September 1, 2001, the death penalty was replaced with the life imprisonment sentences. Precisely, the new law, replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment, except for people under 18 or older than 65 who are given lighter sentences.
Upon joining the Council of Europe in 1995, Ukraine promised to abolish the death penalty but the government had been criticized for not implementing a ban despite a moratorium on executions in March 1997. Our country, however, had continued to execute prisoners in 1997, in violation of its commitment to implement the immediate moratorium on executions on joining the Council of Europe in November 1995. Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ruled in the same year that the death penalty was illegal and ordered the legislature to annul corresponding articles in the Criminal Code. Finally, the new Criminal Code was adopted and, even, came into effect.
I would say that it’s not only the point of clemency, but our tendency to enter the European Union and become one of the civilized country in all its manifestations…Only time will show what is good and bad, what reforms do work and which ones are totally unsuccessful. It’s a long way for us but I hope we will overcome all the obstacles to transfer into a full value European country…
Samuel Pino Torres
Death penalty in Ecuador was abolished in 1906; 76 years after it became an Independent Republic. Our Constitution punishes with 16 year of prision for penal and 25 years for crimes that have to do with psicotropic and mind altering substances. Venezuela was the first country in the world that had abolished death penalty for any kind of crime in 1863. Costa Rica was the third country in the world and the first in Central America to abolish death penalty in 1877.
Read more about abolished countries, where laws don't allow death penalty for any kind of crime, abolition date, abolition date for comun crimes, and last execution date at the next address:
Http://www.ya.com/penademuerte/listapaises.htm
Some opinions:
Http://www.hoy.com.ec/textofinal.asp?numero=pena%20de%20muerte
Http://www.hoy.com.ec/textofinal.asp?numero=77159&texto=penas%20de%20muerte
http://www.ya.com/penademuerte/bush.notfinal.htm
Http://www.puce.edu.ec/DPU/condicion/co_spa_08jun99.htm
The folowing page has information, statistics, forms
to collect signatures to ask the abolition of death
penalty in the Unites States and a list of countries
where death penalty is still practiced.
Http://www.acpp.com/penademuerte.htm
Continue reading " Death Penalty"
On December 10th, 1998, the Death Penalty was abolished in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government chose this date on purpose. It was the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Issued on this exact date in 1948, this declaration represented the will of the General Assembly of the United Nations to protect the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings. The vote of the National Assembly to abolish the Death Penalty showed the strong wish of the whole Bulgarian nation to join the United Nations in their pursuit of protecting the most important right of every human being п his or her life. The last execution in Bulgaria took place on 4 November 1989, but the courts continued to pass death sentences on those convicted of aggravated murder.
In the course of 1998 the Bulgarian authorities started a concerted effort to abolish the death penalty. In February President Petar Stoyanov made a proposal to this effect to the Advisory Council on National Security. In July an amendment to the Penal Code came into force abolishing the death penalty for intentionally causing death to one or more persons as a result of a transport accident. In October the Legal Committee of the National Assembly recommended that the death penalty be abolished for all offences.
On 27 November 1998, deputies from all parliamentary factions voted in favor of the abolition of the Death Penalty. This vote in the National Assembly was a strong indication that the authorities really wanted to finalize this decision on the day when Bulgarians joined the world in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Sources cited:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf
Continue reading "Hristo Pavlov"
Vanessa Mongey
“Tomorrow, thanks to you, French justice will no longer be a justice that kills” were Robert Badinter’s words in his abolitionist speech at the Assemblée Nationale in 1981. The process leading to the abolition of death penalty was longer in France than in any other European democracy: Portugal was the first in 1867, followed by most countries at the beginning of the 20th century. The last execution took place in 1977 and socialist president Francois Mitterrand abolished capital punishment when elected in 1981. Public awareness was heightened thanks to a campaign launched by Arthur Koestler who published Reflections on Hanging in Great Britain in 1955. In France an essay by famous novelist and humanist Albert Camus accompanied this pamphlet. The main idea was that society does not have the right to avenge illegal crime by legal murder. The Council of Europe established as a condition of membership the requirement that prospective member countries commit themselves to abolition. In June 2001 an important world congress in Strasbourg (North-East of France) appealed to the 87 countries that maintain legal death penalty and Amnesty International (non-governmental agency campaigning for human rights worldwide) underlined that 88 percent of executions take place in four countries: China, Saudi Arabia, United States and Iran. French actress Catherine Deneuve brought to Georges W. Bush a petition against capital punishment signed by 500.000 persons.
Sources
A thorough page by Le Monde dedicated to death penalty in the world http://www.lemonde.fr/dossier/0,5987,3222-5495--,00.html
Amnesty International’s website: www.amnesty.org
Commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the abolition of death penalty in France
Http://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/D22/monde.html
Continue reading "Death Penalty"
Claudia Mancilla
As a country that has left behind the atrocities of the military regimen, the only ethically valid way was to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment. So, by means of the Law 19.734, on April 03 of 2001 Chile eliminated the death penalty of its legal code. There are exceptions for specific crimes committed in time of war, which are sent to the Military Code of Justice. This satisfied the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights in use since January 5, 1991.
Though Chile maintained the death penalty for 112 years, during that time it performed 57 executions. Contrasted with other nations, this does not seem to be so extreme. On the other hand, I should mention that in 1990--when Democracy was restored after the dictatorship--the presidents Aylwin and Frei, both of the political party "Christian democracy", decided to pardon the death penalty by perpetual prison, to be consistent with their party and with a mainly catholic nation.
What has been the main motive for abolition? It is considered that the role of the justice is to repair as much as possible (the loss of the life is irreparable) the damage to the victim and to the society, and to produce an exemplary effect (inhibitory) in the rest of the citizens. That is, through a fair punishment, proportional to the committed crime, the delinquent senses the punishment (we are speaking of a punishment of minimum 40 years in prison). Proportional does not mean equivalent. In that sense the death sentence has been like a form of liberation of the own existence of the delinquent since
with the death of the author of the crime, the punishment loses effect automatically. On the other hand the pain of the victim will continue for many years more.
The hardest punishment consequently, should constitute a punishment that the delinquent perceive as such, and not as resembles more to the "an eye by an eye", than to a true concept of justice. In fact with every criminal that justice executes, society tries to clean its conscience, and every criminal that remains in jail for life is the constant reminder that we are doing something wrong.
Sources In English:
http://www.againstdp.org/chile.html Chile abolished the death penalty.
http://www.cwnews.com/Browse/2001/05/15628.htm Cardinal celebrates ends of death penalty in Chile.
Continue reading "Death Penalty"
Floriane Courtin
The abolition of the death penalty in Belgium happened only in 1996. However, the last execution took place in 1950, when 250 collaborators from the World War II were shot. My country succeeded to be, for a long time, a State of right that didn’t put into practice the death penalty anymore, but kept it as a supreme chastisement in the legislation.
Not so long ago, on May 3rd 2002, the secretaries of Foreign Affairs and the representatives of 36 States member of the European Council signed the Protocol number 13 to the European Convention to the rights of men. This text banishes the death sentence under all circumstances, doesn’t admit any exceptions, and presses the United States and Japan to end up this barbaric punishment. It reinforces the impossibility for the States’ members to extradite someone to a country that practices the death penalty. Among those 36 States figures between others Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Ukraine and Malta. Walter Schwimmer, the general secretary of the European Council, declared that: “ The European Council was already proud to have banished the death penalty in peace time (protocol 6). With the Protocol 13, it is again a pioneer by abolishing this punishment under all circumstances. We hope that it is a step towards the universal abolition of the death penalty, and we are going to strike for that.”
Continue reading "Death penalty in Belgium"
