NAGORNO-KARABAKH ELIMINATED DEATH PUNISHMENT VOLUNTARILY
Azat Artsakh Daily, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]
07 May 07
Death penalty has not been administered in Nagorno-Karabakh since
1997. The death sentence was eliminated from August 1, 2003 when the
parliament of NKR adopted the law on enacting the Crime Code of
Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. In accordance with Article 6 of the law,
capital punishment was replaced by life sentence. The last death
sentence was replaced by 15 years in prison on January 30, 2004, said
Albert Voskanian, the chair of the Civic Action Center NGO. He
emphasized that as an unrecognized state Nagorno-Karabakh eliminated
death penalty voluntarily, but did not replace it with life
sentence. `We displayed an adequate legal approach to the problem
because the law in the countries of the CoE does not provide for
replacing death penalty with life sentence,’ Albert Voskanian
said. According to the crime codes of the Soviet Union and the
post-Soviet states, the ultimate punishment was the death sentence,
which could be replaced by 15-20 years in prison but not life
sentence, he said. ` Life sentence is too severe a punishment, because
it deprives people of the hope to return to life and the rest of one’s
life becomes torturous existence. It means replacing instant death
with slow death of old age, diseases and isolation,’ said the defender
of human rights in Karabakh. In addition, he said the international
community still contemplates which penalty is more humanistic.
`Replacement of death penalty with life sentence is humane at first
sight,’ said Albert Voskanian. `We commended the elimination of the
death penalty in our country. In the countries where death penalty is
administered the rate of crime does not go down. In fact, the death
penalty is a display of the power of the government, which is used as
a means of fighting crime. Death penalty is a violation of human
rights and is too cruel, inhumane and humiliating,’ said Albert
Voskanian.
EVIKA BABAYAN.
07-05-2007
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
