Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Valery Zorkin did not rule out that in the future the moratorium on the death penalty may be canceled, follows from Zorkin’s book “Constitutional Justice: Procedure and Meaning”. The book was published on the KS website.
The book says that Russia has established an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty, which was a condition for joining the Council of Europe. The Constitutional Court upheld such a decision in 1999 and 2009, but the capital punishment has not been formally abolished – only the legislator can do this. Zorkin explained that the Constitutional Court announced a practically indefinite moratorium on the appointment and application of such a measure.
“The fact that the Constitutional Court made a decision making it impossible to use the death penalty in Russia at this historical stage of its development does not exclude the possibility of returning to this punishment in the future,” Zorkin said. In his opinion, the issue of imposing the death penalty cannot be closed while premeditated killings are taking place. In this matter, much depends on the general legal situation in Russia.
A moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Russia was introduced in April 1997. The last time the death sentence was carried out was in September 1996, the name of the executed was not disclosed.
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