Belarus is preparing for the abolition of the death penalty

It seems that Belarus regards the abolition of the death penalty as one of the possible steps forward towards Europe. One of the bright events of the past year was that the authorities started talking seriously about the abolition of the death penalty, i.e. started looking at this condition put forward by the European Union as worth implementing.

It all started back in the end of 2008: the Constitutional court spent four month reviewing the issue and decided that the abolition of the death by shooting as well as introduction of a moratorium on the death penalty would not be considered unconstitutional. The mere fact that the Constitutional court was studying this issue became public later when the Deputy Chairman of the Commission on National Security Ivan Kibak announced that this issue could be included on the agenda of the following session of the Parliament that will open on 2^nd April. In case the Deputies vote for it, all the necessary amendments will be made to the Criminal code. After that the definition “death penalty” will vanish and will be replaced with “life sentence”.

Why would the country need it all now? It is quite simple, the authorities decided that Belarus should become a member of the Council of Europe. “Becoming one of the members of the Council of Europe is a priority for the foreign policy of Belarus”, said the head of the Upper Chamber of the Parliament Boris Batura. The Council of Europe in its turn is not willing to compromise with the death penalty.

Terry Davis, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe said, “there is no link between the use of the death penalty and the number of crimes committed. It is not the appropriate way to render justice, it only brings forward unnecessary heroism or suicide bombers for instance in a case of fundamentalism, which leads to the spread of terrorism. It is a really bad policy…”

Even though terrorism is not number one issue for Belarus, it seems that the country sees no more sense in insisting on shooting to death criminals today. Moreover, the Constitutional Court has already confirmed that there was no link between the existence of the death penalty and the number of atrocious murders.

Whether it would be easy for Belarusians to abolish the death penalty?

The dynamics of the number of such verdicts would answer this issue.

In 1998 47 criminals were shot to death, 13 in 1999, 4 in 2000 and 7 in 2001. In the recent years 3-4 criminals a year were shot to death. Typically they were found guilty of double, triple murder with exceptional atrocity. It is nothing for a country not to put to death tree or four murderers. It is not a very heavy price to pay for friendship with Europe.

What about the referendum of 1996 when 80% of the Belarusians expressed their will to leave the article referring to the death penalty in the Criminal code. A professor of the Department of Theory and history of a state and law of the Academy of the Foreign Ministry, Valentina Shelkoplias, in her article in the newspaper “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” explains that back then in 1996 there was not life sentence in the Criminal code, the maximum prison term was 15 years of imprisonment or the death penalty. ‘Life sentence’ was introduced into the Criminal Code in the end of 1997. Therefore today there is an opportunity to separate the society from the ‘non-humans’ (The right for the review of the sentence the convicted has after 25 years of serving his term, if he lives long enough).

Recently the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus Rygor Vasilevich announced that his institution was not against the abolition of the death penalty.

“If the abolition of the shooting to death is a condition set by the Council of Europe and if we would like to see us as members of this organization, we have to accept the rules that exist there. They say one should not go to another monastery with own charter”, said the Prosecutor General.

Mr. Vasilevich himself realizes that the majority of Belarusians may not like the idea of the abolition of the death penalty. He for instance recalled a case of Gomel pedophile, who murdered his last victim, a nine-year old boy, in order not to leave witnesses.

Words “against” the abolition of the death penalty 

Alena Vasilkova, entrepreneur:

“There are exceptional cases when humanism does not make sense. When an eighteen-year old degenerate murders an entire family so that he could live in their apartment and to use their money… how could he be left to live on? (I have read this story several years ago, it took place in one of the regional centres. This ‘non-human’ suffocated even the eight-year old sister). Do you think he will change? No, he will be behind bars for 25 years. Myself and my friends will have to pay for his ‘accommodation’ and ‘meals’ from our tax deductions. Is this what I really need? Moreover, after serving 25 years he may come out as a person that does not impose threat to others. I would not want it! He will only be 43…”

“I believe this existing practice when only atrocious murderers are being shot to death is the ‘right way’. It also reflects the idea of fulfilling the people’s anger, which is important too”.

Words “for” the abolition of the death penalty

Valiantsin Stefanovich, a human rights defender:

“Today my colleagues and I are launching a campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in Belarus. At the website www.spring96.org there is banner “Do not take away life!”, where quotes of famous people related to the abolition of the death penalty will be posted.

A right to life is one of the fundamental human rights. It has been asserted and supported by all confessions that exist in Belarus: the life is given by God and only God may decide when to take it away. For this moment Belarus remains the last country in Europe that exercises and executes the death sentences. After the death penalty was abolished in Uzbekistan on 1 January 2008 our country remained the last one among the post-Soviet countries that implement this type of punishment.

The main goal of the punishment is to give a person an opportunity to realize what he had done. The executed person is not capable of understanding anything anymore. It is a medieval principle “an eye for an eye”, which actually does not influence the number of crimes committed as it has been proved. The presence in the Criminal code of the articles that list death penalty as one of the punishments would not stop a murderer due to the fact that psychologists believe that punishment is the last thing he thinks about.

Moreover, shooting to death makes the judicial errors irreversible. There were cases like that in our judicial system, for instance, when an innocent person was put to death instead of a maniac Mikhasevich.

Also, the bodies of those executed are not given back to the relatives and the place of their burial is a secret. International Human Rights Protection organizations believe that it is a torture of relatives as for many of them a murderer still remains their son, father or brother”.

Whether the society is prepared

The national survey data, conducted in September 2008 by the International Institute of Social, Economic and Political Research shows that 44.2% of the respondents were in favour of the abolishment of the death penalty, 47.8% were against. Therefore one may predict that after several informational and social campaigns Belarus will be ‘morally’ prepared to the abolishment.

Comments by Alena Tonkacheva, the Chairman of the Board of the non-governmental human rights organization “Foundation for Legal Technologies Development”

“It is important to understand that Belarus is the only country in the OSCE region that is applying the death penalty as a punishment.

In order to abolish the death penalty political will of the state is enough. However there seems to be no such political will, regardless of the fact that European discussion in this regard finished long time ago.

It would be worth mentioning here that while the social thinking will be developing in a way of thinking of the Prosecutor General Vasilevich, who recently talked about the abolishment of the death penalty, the country’s involvement into a discussion on human rights and personal freedoms is not feasible. These words came out of the mouth of a Professor of Law, Constitutionalist, ex-Chairman of the Constitutional Court and a Prosecutor General of a European country today.

Whether such opinions are ‘correct’ when pronounced by prominent lawyers and officials of such high level?

Thus rapists and murderers unfortunately were, are and will always be regardless of how terrible it is. However the case that Mr. Vasilevich mentioned is a good example in my view of a different layer. It is scientifically proven fact that persons that commit crimes of that sort repeat them in the majority of cases. It is not a new word neither in science, nor in practice. Then there is an issue related to what measures the law enforcement agencies introduced that could prevent a crime in this case. Whey a triple murder took place? Whether the death penalty is enough measure to protect the society from such crimes in the future? No it is not and it should not be. Statements like that should not remain without comments.

I sincerely hope that while talking about the death penalty as of ‘a preventive measure’ the Prosecutor General simply made a slip in speaking.

Natalia  Rayevskaya