The question not to ask
There is an old joke about a drunk who lost his wallet. A policeman finds a guy scrabbling under a lamp-post and asks him what he is doing. “Looking for my wallet,” he replies. “Is this where you dropped it?” asks the cop. “Nope,” replies the drunk, “but at least I can see what I’m doing here.”
The heated debate that raged suddenly about the death penalty reveals a hidden tension in the society, and that the capital punishment is the sort of question the authorities do not dare to rise because they already know the answer: Russians are angry about the current state of affairs, yet they are not ready to point the finger in the right direction.
According to the decision of the Constitutional Court of February 1999, a sentence of death may not be applied until every person accused of a serious crime is able to have his case heard by jury. From January 1, 2010 the jury trials will be introduced in the Chechen Republic, the only region where they were not so far available.
The decision set only a temporary moratorium, and did not abandon the punishment completely. The time has come to decide whether Russia is ready to kill in the name of justice.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court of Russia asked the Constitutional Court to clarify whether the suspension of the capital punishment will continue next year, and the latter has speedily agreed to discuss the issue on November 9. Ironically, the Constitutional Court is, probably, not the right person to ask.
The capital punishment is in the Criminal Code. Although Russia signed the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty, Parliament has not ratified it and the protocol has not become a part of Russian law. The nineteen wise men and women, sitting in the Constitutional Court, simply do not have authority to decide the matter. It must go to Parliament, but this is the path no one wants to tread on.
The majority of Russians - the polls show at least 70% of the population - would like to see the capital punishment reinstated.
It is not surprising, then, that MPs are tempted to stay with the electorate. "I have always been for the introduction of the death penalty and against the moratorium on the punishment ", said Lyubov Sliska, the vice speaker of Parliament and the deputy-head of the pro-government party “United Russia”. She went on to suggest the capital punishment for economic crimes.
“Most members of our committee,” said Pavel Krasheninnikov, the Chairman of the Duma’s committee on criminal, civil and procedural legislation, “are for the abolition of the death penalty, but the MPs, as far as I can see, do not share a common view on the matter.”
Some appear to believe, quite genuinely, that death as a punishment is an inevitable evil. "I'm for the death penalty,” said Aleksander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee of the General Prosecutor’s Office, “This view is based on my personal experience. I’ve seen people who would step over everything except their lives, and, perhaps, it [the punishment] will stop some of them".
Yet, the main argument against the capital punishment is the real possibility of a judicial mistake. It is now a fact that if not the moratorium dozens of people not guilty of crime they were sentenced for - in most cases their innocence was proven by a mere chance when a real offender was found - would have been killed by now.
Paradoxically, Russians seem to be aware of that. Nearly half of all Russians do not trust the police, and only one in six kept faith in prosecutors. Staggering 43 per cent of the respondents of the Levada Centre said in 2008 that courts make unjust decisions quite often.
So, why do Russians want the death penalty back? The answer is fear, irrational and bodily, that the crime is going to rise and that the state is helpless, and hope that severe punishment would cover for ineffectiveness in law enforcement.
October 30, 2009
