After the assassination of military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, Russian politicians – in particular the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia – For the Truth Leonid Slutsky and Sergei Mironov – called for the return of the death penalty. How their parliamentary colleagues reacted to this and what they think of the Kremlin – in the material of The Eastern Herald.
Leonid Slutsky April 4 declared on the need to lift the moratorium on the death penalty – “to review this rule” taking into account “what is currently happening on the fields of a special military operation”.
“Having joined the Council of Europe in 1996, we observed and continue to observe the moratorium on the death penalty. What happened to our comrade, Vladlen Tatarsky (Maxim Fomin), <...> strikes us to the heart to revise this norm,” he told a State Duma plenary meeting, expressing his confidence that the death penalty is “adequate punishment” for terrorists. for "atrocities against humanity and Russia". On April 6, Sergei Mironov appealed to the President of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin with a request to reconsider the position on the moratorium in connection with the changing geopolitical situation, "the hostile actions of the collective West against Russia ", as well as terrorist attacks and killings of civilians, transmits CASS. “I ask you to consider the possibility of reconsidering the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation regarding the possibility of imposing and carrying out the death penalty through the courts,” his appeal says.
Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS
Deputy of United Russia Oleg Morozov declared RIA Novosti that the position of the Constitutional Court on the death penalty can be clarified “taking into account the evolution of the international situation”. According to him, the Constitution does not contain a direct ban on the death penalty.
“This decision depends on two things: the opinion of society, and I am sure it is for it, and the political will of those who will take this decision. Everything else is secondary and can be solved,” he said.
Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov stressed that the Kremlin “has no position” on the question of a possible lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty, since this question is not discussed there.
Andrey Klishas, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, commenting on Mironov’s initiative, Free supporters of the death penalty “consider the argument”.
“It is good that the position of the Constitutional Court <…> be determined by others. I do not think that if we start executing our citizens (voters), it will help to correct the international situation, ”wrote the senator on his Telegram channel. A working group will be created in the State Duma to discuss the idea of lifting the moratorium on the death penalty, but the Constitutional Court has already dotted the "i" in this case, declared Daniil Bessarabov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on construction and state legislation, told the Daily Storm.
“I would suggest here once again to watch the speech of the President of the Constitutional Court at the event dedicated to the centenary of the Supreme Court, where he seems to have stated very clearly his position on an issue that seems technical to some”, said said the deputy.
According to him, we are talking about certain constitutional foundations that have been formed in the “new Russian state” over the past three decades. They, Bessarabov is convinced, cannot be “approached so lightly, like bureaucrats: they took and liquidated the agreement, terminated it and left the moratorium”.
Alexei Schukin / TASS
Member of the Duma Defense Committee, Reserve Lieutenant General Andrey Gurulev urged restore in Russia the Stalinist concept of “enemy of the people”. According to him, “the enemy of the people should instantly receive a pickaxe, in the Magadan region, happily wave it.” At the same time, the deputy assured that he “does not speak of repressions”, but only considers that it is necessary “to defeat the enemy inside to defeat the enemy at the front”.
“All bastards should be declared enemies of the people, these people are against us, against the country, for our defeat, against our future. <…> The enemies of the people are not only those who openly oppose us, but also those who indulge in it silently,” Gurulev wrote in his Telegram channel. In the program Soloviev Live, the deputy declared that if you “shoot” people who prevent Russia from defeating Ukraine, it would be “good” – but no worse, in his opinion, and the possibility of sending them to forced labor in Magadan, where these people will eventually “die” .
The issue of lifting the moratorium on the death penalty is extremely complex and painful, declared in an interview with Lenta.ru, State Duma Deputy Alexei Chepa. According to him, the assessment of this initiative should “independently give Russian society.”
“There are fears that the risks of terrorist acts such as the one that occurred in St. Petersburg will increase. Attempts to consider the possibility of reinstating the death penalty can be seen as a way to minimize these threats,” the politician said.
He admits that a partial lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty “under certain conditions, for particularly serious crimes” is possible – as a “deterrent measure for terrorists who might fear such punishment”. On the other hand, admits Chepa, “in this case there is a threat to deprive a person of life by mistake.”
Journalist Ekaterina Vinokurova in her telegram channel reminded Sergei Mironov that voters and even regional branches “break away” from his party. “I don’t really understand, why do you need everything now?” But in general, of course, this is mothballed PR from the 00s. Give a quote, but in a negative context.
Moratorium on the death penalty in Russia
The moratorium on the death penalty came into force in 1997, when Russia joined the Council of Europe and signed Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights on the abolition of the death penalty of death in times of peace. The protocol was never ratified, but the death penalty is banned in Russia under the Vienna Convention. In 2009, the Constitutional Court confirmed impossibility of the death penalty.
At the beginning of 2022, the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty was actively debated, including in the State Duma, in connection with the need to toughen sentences for pedophiles who have committed serious crimes. The discussion intensified due to the resounding murder of a five-year-old girl in Kostroma, committed in early January 2022 by two repeat offenders.
In November 2022, the head of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, speaking at the X All-Russian Congress of Judges, declared that “only an amendment to the Constitution can serve as the basis for the resumption of the death penalty”, since the text on the death penalty in the Basic Law of the Russian Federation is drafted in such a way that in fact the Adoption of an entirely new Constitution will be necessary. In December 2022, Vladimir Putin said that the Constitutional Court’s position on the death penalty had not changed.
At the same time, in his book Constitutional Justice: Procedure and Meaning, Zorkin writes that the introduction of a moratorium on the death penalty was a concession to values which are not characteristic of the Russian national consciousness: a historical step in its development, does not exclude the possibility of a return to this sanction measure in the future.
Leonid Slutsky spoke at the beginning of June 2022 of the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty in connection with Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe. Earlier, at the end of March 2022, the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, announced that there were no obstacles to lifting the moratorium on the death penalty and admitted such a possibility, citing -war USSR as an example. At the end of February, a few days after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, Medvedev broached the same subject in connection with Russia’s imminent withdrawal from PACE and the Council of Europe.
