Will Russia Reinstate the Death Penalty?

by Matt Kelley · 2009-11-02 20:14:00 UTC
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Russia is at a crossroads on capital punishment.

Ten years ago, the Russian Constitutional Court introduced a moratorium on death sentences until the country made the switch to the jury system. The country's leaders also pledged to abolish the practice as they were joining the Council of Europe, and the jury delay was seen as a step toward abolition.

The switch to juries is nearly complete, and human rights advocates and death penalty abolitionists are watching Russia's next steps on capital punishment.

Jury trials are now standard practice throughout most of the Russian Federation, with only Chechnya left to make the switch. On paper, the Chechen Republic is scheduled to be start jury trials on January 1, but it doesn't look like that will happen. No preparations have been made for the switch, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to say in his upcoming state of the nation address that the death penalty moratorium will continue, Russian website Gazeta.ru reported over the weekend.

Gazeta also reports that the government isn't ready to either fully abolish the death penalty or reinstate it right now, so delaying the jury switch in Chechnya might be an escape hatch. But if the Council of Europe has a say, the moratorium will last until abolition is finally possible.

Via Death Penalty News -- Photo by Alan Cordova

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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