Twenty years ago, on February 22, 2000, the Verkhovna Rada voted 229 to 15 to abolish the death penalty, meeting a 1995 pledge to the Council of Europe.
Ukraine’s Parliament also ratified Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention), which provides for the abolition of the death penalty except in time of war or the imminent threat of war. The vote on that measure was 228 for and six against.
Communist Party and Progressive Socialist Party deputies did not participate in any of the voting.
Amnesty International noted that the death penalty in Ukraine was replaced with life imprisonment, and the ratification of Protocol No. 6 meant that existing death sentences would be commuted into life sentences.
Amnesty International in its statement said: “Ukraine has taken the monumental step of joining the vast majority of its European neighbors who have already removed this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment from their statute books. This signals an important new commitment to protect fundamental human rights in the country.”
The statement also noted the speed with which the Ukrainian Parliament removed the death penalty from its penal code, calling it both “unexpected and very impressive.”
Ukraine had issued a moratorium on executions in March 1997, but continued to pass the death sentence. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled in 1999 that the death penalty was unconstitutional, violating the principle of the right to life, which is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine.
Ukraine had committed to abolish the death penalty in November 1995, and the country committed to sign and ratify the European Convention within three years of its accession to the Council of Europe. Neither of these commitments were fulfilled by the agreed deadline of November 1998 or its extended deadline of June 1999. In June 1999, PACE ruled to extend the deadline to January 2000.
The legislative move by the Verkhovna Rada 20 years ago met the prerequisites for Ukraine’s entry into the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Source: “Rada abolishes death penalty,” The Ukrainian Weekly, March 5, 2000.