EU urges Russia to keep moratorium on death penalty

BRUSSELS. November 12. KAZINFORM The European Union is hoping that Russia will not abolish the moratorium on the death penalty, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

Russia undertook to scrap the death penalty when it signed Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, but it has not yet ratified the document.

Russia's Constitutional Court held a session on Monday on whether the death penalty should be restored, but after several hours of hearings, turned the ruling to a closed session to be held later in the year. The court said the decision may come before the New Year.

"It [the death penalty] is unacceptable for us as it is against our common values," Ferrero-Waldner said Wednesday during the debates in the European parliament prior to a Russia-EU summit on November 18.

The court's 1999 ruling declared that the death penalty could not be applied until trial by jury had been introduced in all Russian regions.

The troubled North Caucasus republic of Chechnya will become Russia's last region where juries will be allowed as an alternative to panels of judges on January 1, 2010, removing the formal obstacle to reinstating capital punishment in the country.

The court must now decide if by reinstating the death penalty Russia would be violating its international commitments, and if that would be unconstitutional.

Some senior Russian officials and lawmakers have said that the country, bound by its obligations under the European Human Rights Convention, would most likely extend the moratorium despite strong public support for capital punishment.

"We certainly hope it will be so," Ferrero-Waldner said,  Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.

See www.en.rian.ru