Russia’s Constitutional Court effectively outlawed the death penalty yesterday, saying that a moratorium on capital punishment should remain in force until the nation fully bans executions.
Constitutional Court chief judge Valery Zorkin said Russia must extend the moratorium on executions until it ratifies a European convention banning the death penalty.
Russia announced a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and pledged to abolish it, but has not done so.
The Kremlin-controlled parliament has been reluctant to fully outlaw executions, citing broad public support for the death penalty.
Persistent violence in the North Caucasus region has prompted some to demand the death penalty for those involved in terrorism, and there is also public pressure for convicted serial killers, murderers and child abusers to be executed.
But reviving capital punishment would harm relations with the EU and undermine Kremlin claims that Russia is no less modern than European countries. President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken out about the importance of the rule of law and basic human values.
“The State Duma hasn’t yet ratified the protocol banning capital punishment because many in Russia support the death penalty,” said Mikhail Krotov, Medvedev’s envoy to the Constitutional Court. “The society needs more time to ban the death penalty. But the government structures support a ban on capital punishment.”
The court’s ruling came as an earlier moratorium on death penalty imposed in 1999 was to lose its legal foundation in January, when jury trials are to be introduced in Chechnya.
The moratorium had specified that courts must not hand out death sentences until jury trials are available in all of Russia’s provinces. Chechnya is the only province where they have not been introduced.
The court said yesterday that the introduction of jury trials in all regions of Russia “doesn’t create conditions for using the death penalty.”
Meanwhile, Medvedev has dismissed an influential Kremlin media adviser for breaching government rules, the first such sacking of his presidency, media reported yesterday.
The Kremlin announced the departure of Mikhail Lesin, who founded Russia’s main TV advertising company in 1990 and held senior posts in news, TV and the government, in a terse statement saying Lesin left “at his own request.”
But Interfax news agency, citing an unidentified Kremlin official, reported that Lesin was sacked for using “his position to resolve questions not related to his official duties.”
It quoted the Kremlin official as saying Lesin, 51, had breached discipline and rules on state service.
Other Russian newspapers also ran stories yesterday saying Lesin, who looked after media, information technology and intellectual property issues in the Kremlin administration, was sacked for conflicts of interest with his own businesses.
A Kremlin spokesman refused to comment on the reports.
The reports described Lesin’s departure as a decision taken at Medvedev’s initiative.
RSS