The death penalty from ancient times is a continuous companion of human civilization. This is a form of criminal punishment, a response to the commission of an unlawful or illegal act. In the modern world, the problem of the death penalty is particularly acute. Most civilized states considered it unacceptable to take the life of any person. However, some countries do not see anything reprehensible in the death sentence. Who is right - supporters of the execution or its opponents? Let's try to understand our material.
The concept of the death penalty
The death penalty is not hidden or denied. This phenomenon is directly or indirectly part of the legal system of any state. Moreover, it does not matter what reason the government is guided by or what method is used to implement the sentence. It is only known that in some countries the death penalty is used in full, while in others its use is limited.
For example, you can take the Russian Federation. There is no problem of the death penalty in our country: depriving a person of his life is quite possible within the framework of the current legal system. Moreover, the use of the penalty is allowed only in certain cases - emergency, military and others regulated by federal legislation.
Article 20 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that the death penalty can be applied only by issuing the corresponding federal law. In other words, the deprivation of life of especially serious criminals should be accompanied by the writing of the corresponding law. Why are there such difficulties?
Since 1996, the Russian Federation has been a member of the Council of Europe, an international organization for which the issue of the death penalty is particularly relevant. A condition for Russia to be in the Council is to establish a moratorium on the deprivation of life of criminals. The relevant Law adopted an alternative to execution in the form of life imprisonment.
So, officially in the Russian Federation there is a death penalty. It is permitted by the Constitution, but is limited by federal law.
Execution in the history of Russia
The prototype of the death penalty in Ancient Rus was blood feud. For serious misconduct, members of one clan could fatally take revenge on representatives of another clan. For the first time, a legal definition of execution arose in 1398 in the Dvina registered charter. Article 5 of this document provided for death only for tatba (theft). For the theft committed for the third time, a person was recognized as a villain and was deprived of his life.
Old Russian legislation borrowed a lot from Byzantine law. So, the Pskov Judicial Certificate of 1467 expanded the use of the death penalty. Now she was subjected to traitors, arsonists and horse thieves. The suicide bomber of Ivan III also lost their lives to slanderers, robbers and traitors to the church.
Until the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, the institution of deprivation of life expanded and improved. Only in 1744, the daughter of Peter the Great, Empress Elizabeth, solved the problem of the abolition of the death penalty. Life was no longer deprived, but put in jail. As a result, the prisons were overcrowded. The "tower" remained only for military and quarantine criminals.
In the 30s of the XIX century, a code of laws was adopted in the Russian Empire. It provided for the deprivation of life only for serious crimes against the state. After the revolution, execution became almost the main form of punishment. Its official use is possible in today's Russia.
The problem of the death penalty in the constitutional law of Russia
So, the current Constitution officially allows the deprivation of people’s life for committing especially serious crimes. Why not completely eliminate the death penalty in Russia? The problem lies in the ways of forming the legal system. Paragraph 1 of Article 135 of the country's main law states that the provisions of chapters 1, 2 and 9 of the Constitution cannot be reviewed by the legislature. For amendments and changes to these parts of the law, the convocation of the Constitutional Assembly is required - a special body that is going to create or liquidate the main state law.
Article 20 on the penalty of deprivation of life is precisely in chapter 2, the part on the rights and freedoms of man and citizen. Thus, in order to solve the problem of the abolition of the death penalty in Russia, it is necessary to abolish the current Constitution and create a new one. This procedure, to put it mildly, is long and very problematic. A good alternative for her was the adoption of a moratorium - an unlimited limit on the application of the highest form of punishment.
Execution in modern criminal law
The death penalty is established for 5 types of crimes. All of them are spelled out in the Russian Criminal Code:
- murder - Art. 105;
- encroachment on the life of a public or statesman - Art. 277;
- encroachment on the life of a judge or investigator - Art. 317;
- encroachment on the life of a law enforcement officer - Art. 317;
- genocide - Art. 357.
No court has been able to impose the death penalty since November 2009. This decision was made by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.
Features of the death penalty in Russian criminal law
The problem of the use of the death penalty in Russia has not yet been resolved, and therefore capital punishment may return at any time. If this happens, the following rules will be set:
- a ban on the deprivation of life of women;
- a ban on the use of the death penalty for persons over 65;
- the use of compulsory treatment instead of the execution of punishment for those who suffer from serious mental disorders.
The ban on executions was discussed even before Russia joined the Council of Europe. The fact is that in the Criminal Executive Code and the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation serious contradictions were discovered. The PEC states that the correction of convicted persons is considered an important achievement - the formation of respect for the law, society, work and rules of conduct. Correction of criminals will serve as a good example and will stimulate law-abiding behavior of citizens. At the same time, the Criminal Code allows the deprivation of human life. The death penalty directly contradicts the most important principle enshrined in the PEC, because only a living convict can improve.
The use of execution in modern countries
According to a 2014 UN report, capital punishment is retained in 58 countries under their own laws. 22 of them regularly carry out death sentences. 98 states have completely abolished this type of punishment and 35 do not apply in practice. In 7 countries, it is allowed to take a person’s life only for the most serious crimes, for example, high treason, violation of the rules of leadership during the war, etc. In five countries, the executions of children are allowed. These are Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Sudan.
With the exception of the United States and Belarus, all countries where the death penalty is legalized are in Asia and Africa. These are China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, North Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Bahrain, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Syria.
Every year, about a thousand, or even one and a half thousand people are executed in the world. Most death sentences are implemented in China and Iran. The real number of capital punishment in China is unknown. The main Asian country does not really think about the problem of the death penalty in modern society, and therefore the number of deaths is kept in the form of state secrets.
The number of executed in the United States does not exceed 50 people. In Belarus, an unspoken moratorium has long been imposed on death sentences, but executions have resumed since 2016.
Opinions of the opponents of the death penalty
Over the centuries, many people have expressed their views on the right to life and the problems of the death penalty. Two points of view were formed on the situation, which, however, were proved differently.
Opponents of capital punishment consider death an unfair way of influencing society. Most of these individuals are guided by the concept that power is only a servant of the people, while the population itself transfers part of their rights to the authorities. In this case, a certain compromise is reached in which any encroachment on life is unacceptable. So many ancient and eastern philosophers believed.
In Russia, the problem of the death penalty was first discussed in the 18th century. Belinsky, Herzen, Pestel, Radishchev, Chernyshevsky and other major thinkers advocated the complete abolition or at least limitation of death sentences.
Several centuries ago, the opinion of opponents of the execution consisted mainly of religious and ethical attitudes. Philosophers, writers and public figures considered killing a person an unacceptable punishment precisely because of church taboos. A special role was played by the sixth Gospel commandment "Thou shalt not kill."
Some thinkers did not take into account the religious problems of the use of the death penalty. Moreover, a considerable part of the opponents of "legal murder" were atheists and materialists. In their reasoning, such people spoke of the value of human life and the inadmissibility of depriving it of any committed acts.
The opinions of supporters of the death penalty
The main argument in favor of the lawful deprivation of human life is the desire to maintain public order and put pressure on potential criminals. The American criminologist Rekless developed the main provisions in defense of the execution:
- punishment as atonement - the offender must suffer in order to atone for the deed;
- correspondence of punishment to perfect crime, that is, compliance with the principle of the talion;
- punishment as a defense of public interest;
- punishment as a way of intimidation.
Each of the theses presented has long been parsed by other thinkers. Atonement is unlikely to happen in a short time, namely from a judicial opinion to execution. The principle of the talion is very difficult to put into practice, since crime and punishment are incompatible things. The influence of someone’s death on the protection of public interests is also doubtful, because this is already a solved problem: the death penalty and life imprisonment are almost equivalent phenomena. Of all the provisions, only the thesis on the method of intimidation is relatively true. However, statistics show that in countries with the current death penalty there is no less crime.
Religious aspect
There are several views on whether religion approved the death penalty or not. On the one hand, the Old Testament dictates rather harsh and radical methods of dealing with sinners: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it." This is supported by the principle of the talion: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." At the same time, the main commandment of the Lord is "Thou shalt not kill."
In any religion, you can find quite a few contradictions. Historians and anthropologists explain this in their own way, and creationists see metaphors in everything. Nevertheless, it was religion that has been the engine of the death penalty for centuries. Heretics, robbers, traitors and other infidels were punished by deprivation of life precisely on behalf of very pious people.
What guided believers in the death penalty? Firstly, by numerous quotes from the Holy Scriptures and apostolic prescriptions. For example, in Word 4, John Chrysostom writes that "killing by the will of God is better than all humanity." The principle, it must be said, is rather unexpected for peace-loving Christianity.
Secondly, it was not the believers themselves who approved the killings, but the institution of the church. This social unit often deviated so much from religious dogma that the problems and prospects of the death penalty may seem insignificant.
The modern Christian movement does not approve of the deprivation of human life. This is stated by Catholics led by the pope and the Orthodox Church.
Moral aspect
Is death a fair influence for a crime, no matter how large or character it may be? This issue is fundamental when considering executions from a moral point of view. Supporters of the deprivation of human life speak about the deserving of capital punishment. Opponents claim that execution itself is a deliberate murder, and therefore its entire organization does not make sense.
Does the death penalty threaten criminals? Both supporters and opponents agree that thoughts of death are unpleasant for all people. There is, however, a theory that murderers and all sorts of villains are less afraid of death.
The last point is connected with the alternative of punishment in the form of taking a person’s life. This issue was discussed when studying the problem of the death penalty in the Russian Federation. Opponents of human elimination argue that the execution is irreparable and the most cruel of all penalties. Replacing it with life imprisonment is an act of humanism. Supporters of the death penalty consider death a far more humane phenomenon than life imprisonment. A person’s life ends immediately; one does not have to wait for the death of several years in prison.
Thus, discussions are still underway on the moral aspect of the death penalty. A single answer is still impossible to find.