07 February 2008, 11:04
The Law Enforcement Legislative Support Committee recommends that The Verkhovna Rada adopts at the First Reading, as a basis for further discussions, a Bill on Amendments to the Criminal Code and Procedural Criminal Code of Ukraine (appertaining to types of punishment), introduced by People´s Deputies, P. Symonenko and O. Holub.
The Bill (Reg.No.1048), stated Olexander Holub, one of its Sponsors, has been prepared in response to numerous demands from Ukrainian citizens to prescribe a more severe punishment for crimes of a mostly violent nature, including that of Pre-meditated Murder with aggravating circumstances. The Bill envisages prescribing, as an exclusive measure, the Death Penalty for Pre-meditated Murder committed with extreme brutality, or a method affecting the health and safety of many individuals, or combined with rape or sexual assault to satisfy sexual desire in an unnatural manner, commissioned murders, and murders committed by a conspiracy; or crimes leading to the loss of life of two or more individuals.
The Sponsors believe that the passing of this Law will become will act as a deterrent for those who might commit the above crimes.
Committee members noted that in the world today the trend is to move away from the Death Penalty (The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly recently adopted a Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty by a majority of votes). Nevertheless, Criminal Legislation in many countries envisages the use of such a punishment. According to the data provided by Amnesty International, as mentioned by the speakers, 80 countries have abolished the Death Penalty for all crimes, 15 countries have abolished this for all crimes except in special cases such as military offences, and 23 countries have included the Death Penalty in their Legislation, although however it is not used in practice. At the same time, 78 countries and territorial units and use the Death Penalty, among them The United States of America, The People´s Republic of China, Japan, and Egypt.
The speakers drew attention to the fact that the General Declaration of Human Rights does not prohibit the use of the Death Penalty, and the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights allows its use in cases of the most violent crimes.
The implementation of this Law, should it be adopted, will require no additional expenditure from the State Budget of Ukraine, The State will no longer be required to incur huge sums on the upkeep of dangerous offenders who have committed pre-medicated murder with aggravating circumstances, and who have so far been sentenced to life imprisonment.