NOTE: I will post a debate on the
death penalty every fortnight on the blog.
Should Ukraine reinstate death penalty for murder?
Mar 29 at
23:51 | Alyona Zhuk and Olga Rudenko
YES
Olga Rudenko writes: Ultimate punishment can help deter crime
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| Olga Rudenko |
The nation banned capital punishment 12 years ago, barely using it in the years leading up to the ban.
But the case of Makar shows that it may be necessary to reinstate it. Makar’s murderers, who burned the woman alive and then went to buy some tea from a street kiosk as if nothing happened, are facing between 15 years to life in prison.
But the
law allows a convict to plea for a parole after spending 20 years in prison,
which raises a question about the whole idea behind a life sentence.
Even if Makar’s alleged killers and rapists get life sentences, they might get out of jail in their forties. Makar was only 18 and she died after three weeks of agony.
Moreover, once we say that taking away a murderer’s freedom is a fair punishment for taking away a person’s life we get onto a slippery slope of making judgments about the value of freedom verses the value of life, we start to compare the two. But who are we to do that?
We can't punish someone who took someone’s life by taking their freedom because we will never know if it's too little or too much.
On the other hand, taking a murderer’s life is paying them back with his own coin.
The ancient eye-for-an-eye principle is the best justice.
The only modern renovation it needs is accurate judgment about whether the crime was deliberate and if there were any mitigating circumstances.
One who killed in a state of shock or deep despair should not be judged the same as the one who killed in a premeditated way for money or personal satisfaction.
About five years ago in Dnipropetrovsk, my home city, a gang of three young men murdered 21 people aged 13 to 70, for fun.
The murderers chose a random passersby, giving preference to teens, women, elderly or drunk people.
They killed with hammers.
They filmed their bloody murders.
They are now serving life sentences. But in 20 years, if not earlier, they may be released – some at the age of only 40, to resume their lives as free men.
To me, that is not right at all.
The death penalty is a deterrent. Just a year ago, two men from the Russian city of Irkutsk were killing people out of pure hate.
When arrested, one of them said he didn’t worry much about being convicted because he counted on light punishment since he is not an adult.
Even if Makar’s alleged killers and rapists get life sentences, they might get out of jail in their forties. Makar was only 18 and she died after three weeks of agony.
Moreover, once we say that taking away a murderer’s freedom is a fair punishment for taking away a person’s life we get onto a slippery slope of making judgments about the value of freedom verses the value of life, we start to compare the two. But who are we to do that?
We can't punish someone who took someone’s life by taking their freedom because we will never know if it's too little or too much.
On the other hand, taking a murderer’s life is paying them back with his own coin.
The ancient eye-for-an-eye principle is the best justice.
The only modern renovation it needs is accurate judgment about whether the crime was deliberate and if there were any mitigating circumstances.
One who killed in a state of shock or deep despair should not be judged the same as the one who killed in a premeditated way for money or personal satisfaction.
About five years ago in Dnipropetrovsk, my home city, a gang of three young men murdered 21 people aged 13 to 70, for fun.
The murderers chose a random passersby, giving preference to teens, women, elderly or drunk people.
They killed with hammers.
They filmed their bloody murders.
They are now serving life sentences. But in 20 years, if not earlier, they may be released – some at the age of only 40, to resume their lives as free men.
To me, that is not right at all.
The death penalty is a deterrent. Just a year ago, two men from the Russian city of Irkutsk were killing people out of pure hate.
When arrested, one of them said he didn’t worry much about being convicted because he counted on light punishment since he is not an adult.
Consequences
mattered to him when he was planning his bloody adventures.
We’ll never know, but even the slight chance of getting capital punishment may have frightened him enough to not commit the crimes, which included beating a pregnant woman’s head with a mallet and stabbing an elderly woman in the eye with a knife.
Critics often say there is no place for the death penalty in a civilized world. But is it civilized to let murderers back into society, possibly to kill again? Whenever a homicide happens, police check the area for released convicts. If they are expected to relapse, why give them the chance?
What is most important is not that the death penalty is cheaper than life imprisonment, but rather how cruel it is to make a victim’s family and friend – as taxpayers to the state – pay for the murderer.
But I don’t think the death penalty can be re-established right now in Ukraine. The irreversibility of capital punishment puts additional responsibility on the judicial system. And Ukraine’s corrupt system cannot handle the responsibility.
Still, I think the death penalty must be a possibility for Ukrainian society in the future as a fair part of the judicial system and a logical punishment for murders without mitigating circumstances.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com.
We’ll never know, but even the slight chance of getting capital punishment may have frightened him enough to not commit the crimes, which included beating a pregnant woman’s head with a mallet and stabbing an elderly woman in the eye with a knife.
Critics often say there is no place for the death penalty in a civilized world. But is it civilized to let murderers back into society, possibly to kill again? Whenever a homicide happens, police check the area for released convicts. If they are expected to relapse, why give them the chance?
What is most important is not that the death penalty is cheaper than life imprisonment, but rather how cruel it is to make a victim’s family and friend – as taxpayers to the state – pay for the murderer.
But I don’t think the death penalty can be re-established right now in Ukraine. The irreversibility of capital punishment puts additional responsibility on the judicial system. And Ukraine’s corrupt system cannot handle the responsibility.
Still, I think the death penalty must be a possibility for Ukrainian society in the future as a fair part of the judicial system and a logical punishment for murders without mitigating circumstances.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com.
NO
Alyona Zhuk writes: Courts too unreliable; everyone has rights
Alyona Zhuk writes: Courts too unreliable; everyone has rights
 |
| Alyona Zhuk |
Human life is not something to treat lightly.
Whether you believe in God or not, it is something unique and amazing.
Not to mention that in modern society, the right to human life is indispensable, along with the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as most constitutions in democratic states (including Ukraine’s), protect human life.
According to Amnesty International, an international watchdog, the death penalty violates the right to life. This argument against capital punishment is mocked by those who stand for killing criminals, with eye-for-eye arguments.
However, with the numerous pitfalls of any judicial system, there is always the risk that an innocent person will be executed.
That is exactly what happened to 29-year-old Oleksandr Kravchenko in 1983, when the state executed him for a crime he did not commit.
The crime was actually committed by Andrei Chikatilo, a notorious serial killer in the Soviet era. The fact that Chikatilo was also executed, in 1994, does nothing to correct the horrible mistake of killing an innocent person.
The same miscarriage of justice could have been repeated with Maksym Dmytrenko, who has spent eight years in jail for a crime he has nothing to do with. He would have died by now if Ukraine still had death penalty as an option.
Dmytrenko was tortured in 2003 until he admitted he had raped and killed an underage girl.
He went to prison.
Even though another man confessed to this crime more than a year ago, and was later proven to have committed the murder, Dmytrenko was locked up in a cell.
The Higher Ukrainian Court found Dmytrenko not guilty on March 13, but he was only released on March 22.
If that’s not enough, Amnesty International claims that the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor and members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
Moreover, in some countries, “it is used as a tool of repression to silence the political opposition.”
Considering Ukraine’s political landscape and the sorry state of its judicial system, the death penalty could well be the ultimate weapon of political persecution.
According to the latest report by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg, Ukraine’s judicial system needs more independence and its systemic deficiencies “seriously hinder the enjoyment of human rights.”
He also recommended increasing transparency of the judicial system and making it more open to public scrutiny.
But even if the judicial system was flawless, there is always a question of who has the moral right to conduct the execution.
Why would someone have the right to kill, even on behalf of the law?
Amnesty International's 201 report shows 139 countries have abolished the death penalty.
Reportedly, 67 handed out death sentences in 2010 and 23 carried out executions. These are record low numbers, as human rights organizations continue pressuring governments to drop the death penalty.
The United Nations General Assembly called for an end to the death penalty in 2008, and although governments don’t have to follow the recommendation, it certainly reflects a trend.
The European Union is opposed to this form of punishment and, consequently, all 27-member nations have dropped it.
If these and other reasons are not persuasive enough for Ukraine to abandon the idea of reviving the death penalty, the nation should remember its resurrection will kill the remaining hopes that Ukraine will ever become welcome in a democratic, law-abiding, humane Europe.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at zhuk@kyivpost.com..
Whether you believe in God or not, it is something unique and amazing.
Not to mention that in modern society, the right to human life is indispensable, along with the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as most constitutions in democratic states (including Ukraine’s), protect human life.
According to Amnesty International, an international watchdog, the death penalty violates the right to life. This argument against capital punishment is mocked by those who stand for killing criminals, with eye-for-eye arguments.
However, with the numerous pitfalls of any judicial system, there is always the risk that an innocent person will be executed.
That is exactly what happened to 29-year-old Oleksandr Kravchenko in 1983, when the state executed him for a crime he did not commit.
The crime was actually committed by Andrei Chikatilo, a notorious serial killer in the Soviet era. The fact that Chikatilo was also executed, in 1994, does nothing to correct the horrible mistake of killing an innocent person.
The same miscarriage of justice could have been repeated with Maksym Dmytrenko, who has spent eight years in jail for a crime he has nothing to do with. He would have died by now if Ukraine still had death penalty as an option.
Dmytrenko was tortured in 2003 until he admitted he had raped and killed an underage girl.
He went to prison.
Even though another man confessed to this crime more than a year ago, and was later proven to have committed the murder, Dmytrenko was locked up in a cell.
The Higher Ukrainian Court found Dmytrenko not guilty on March 13, but he was only released on March 22.
If that’s not enough, Amnesty International claims that the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor and members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
Moreover, in some countries, “it is used as a tool of repression to silence the political opposition.”
Considering Ukraine’s political landscape and the sorry state of its judicial system, the death penalty could well be the ultimate weapon of political persecution.
According to the latest report by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg, Ukraine’s judicial system needs more independence and its systemic deficiencies “seriously hinder the enjoyment of human rights.”
He also recommended increasing transparency of the judicial system and making it more open to public scrutiny.
But even if the judicial system was flawless, there is always a question of who has the moral right to conduct the execution.
Why would someone have the right to kill, even on behalf of the law?
Amnesty International's 201 report shows 139 countries have abolished the death penalty.
Reportedly, 67 handed out death sentences in 2010 and 23 carried out executions. These are record low numbers, as human rights organizations continue pressuring governments to drop the death penalty.
The United Nations General Assembly called for an end to the death penalty in 2008, and although governments don’t have to follow the recommendation, it certainly reflects a trend.
The European Union is opposed to this form of punishment and, consequently, all 27-member nations have dropped it.
If these and other reasons are not persuasive enough for Ukraine to abandon the idea of reviving the death penalty, the nation should remember its resurrection will kill the remaining hopes that Ukraine will ever become welcome in a democratic, law-abiding, humane Europe.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at zhuk@kyivpost.com..
My
response to Alyona Zhuk
writes: Courts too unreliable; everyone has rights
As a former opponent of the death
penalty, I would like to respond to Alyona Zhuk’s argument against the death
penalty.
Human life
is not something to treat lightly.
Whether you believe in God or not, it is something unique and amazing.
Not to
mention that in modern society, the right to human life is indispensable, along
with the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.
My
response:
If you value human life, you should support the death of killers as it affirms
life. It is not just the death penalty that is cruel, inhumane or degrading
treatment, any punishment can be like that too.
The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as most constitutions in
democratic states (including Ukraine’s), protect human life.
According to Amnesty International, an international watchdog, the death penalty violates the right to life. This argument against capital punishment is mocked by those who stand for killing criminals, with eye-for-eye arguments.
My
response:
Protect life? The only human lives that those abolitionists want to protect are
murderers.
Please read Article
12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to
arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to
attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the
protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
However,
with the numerous pitfalls of any judicial system, there is always the risk
that an innocent person will be executed.
That is exactly what happened to 29-year-old Oleksandr Kravchenko in 1983, when the state executed him for a crime he did not commit.
The crime was actually committed by Andrei Chikatilo, a notorious serial killer in the Soviet era. The fact that Chikatilo was also executed, in 1994, does nothing to correct the horrible mistake of killing an innocent person.
My
response:
Trials must have massive safeguards and closed scrutiny at every level to
prevent an innocent from being executed in the future. I agree that Andrei
Chikatilo being executed in 1994, does nothing to correct the horrible mistake
of killing an innocent person. But just that because there are risks that an
innocent person might be executed, does not mean that we must spare the lives
of those who are truly guilty. The abolition of the death penalty will put more
innocent people at risk, please see what Olga
Rudenko said.
The same
miscarriage of justice could have been repeated with Maksym Dmytrenko, who has
spent eight years in jail for a crime he has nothing to do with. He would have
died by now if Ukraine still had death penalty as an option.
Dmytrenko was tortured in 2003 until he admitted he had raped and killed an underage girl.
He went to prison.
Even though another man confessed to this crime more than a year ago, and was later proven to have committed the murder, Dmytrenko was locked up in a cell.
The Higher Ukrainian Court found Dmytrenko not guilty on March 13, but he was only released on March 22.
My
response:
Misdirection! The death penalty was not available! If it had been it maybe that
the standard of proof would have been insufficient for a jury to find him guilty!
And he might not even have spent time in prison at all! You just never know!
Given the wrongful
execution of Oleksandr Kravchenko, the justice system might learn from that
mistake to prevent the wrongful conviction of another. Like Chairman Mao Zedong
once said, “One cannot advance without mistakes...
It is necessary to make mistakes. The party cannot be educated without learning
from mistakes.”
If that’s not enough, Amnesty International claims that the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor and members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
If that’s not enough, Amnesty International claims that the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor and members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
Moreover, in some countries, “it is used as a tool of repression to silence the political opposition.”
Considering Ukraine’s political landscape and the sorry state of its judicial system, the death penalty could well be the ultimate weapon of political persecution.
According
to the latest report by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
Thomas Hammarberg, Ukraine’s judicial system needs more independence and its
systemic deficiencies “seriously hinder the enjoyment of human rights.”
He also recommended increasing transparency of the judicial system and making it more open to public scrutiny.
My
response:
If there is a problem with the system, please fix it. The solution is to set up
a democratic government and ensure that executions will not be used for
political reasons. I agree that capital trials must be videotaped for the public
to see ensure that no miscarriages of justice will be occurred.
But even if
the judicial system was flawless, there is always a question of who has the
moral right to conduct the execution.
Why would someone have the right to kill, even on behalf of the law?
My
Response:
Who has the moral right to conduct the execution?
Answer: Russian writer,
"For the executioner only holds
himself in readiness to kill those who have been adjudged to be harmful and
criminal, while a soldier promises to kill all who he is told to kill, even
though they may be the dearest to him or the best of men."
He means that if the
state can send soldiers to kill foreign invaders, why can they not hire an
executioner to kill condemned criminals?
Why would someone have the right to kill, even on behalf of the law?
Answer: Some death
penalty advocates like Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Alex Kozinski, and Chalerm Ubumrung are willing to wipe out evil people and make them be afraid of
losing their life. Death is frightening, please check with Erich Maria Remarque. If nobody wants to do the executioners’ job, please hire a Saudi Arabian executioner, as they take pride in their job in order to protect their
country.
The United
Nations General Assembly called for an end to the death penalty in 2008, and
although governments don’t have to follow the recommendation, it certainly
reflects a trend.
My
response:
Governments do not have to follow the recommendation; they should only answer
to country and public. Please read the second quote of what Deputy Thai Prime
Minister Chalerm Ubumrung said.
The European Union is opposed to this form of punishment and, consequently, all 27-member nations have dropped it.
If these and other reasons are not persuasive enough for Ukraine to abandon the idea of reviving the death penalty, the nation should remember its resurrection will kill the remaining hopes that Ukraine will ever become welcome in a democratic, law-abiding, humane Europe.
My response: Please see the article below –
Joshua Micah
Marshall, the Washington editor of The American Prospect, wrote an article in 2000
describing the state of affairs in Europe concerning the death penalty:
It's
true that every industrialized nation, save Japan and the US, have abolished
capital punishment, but the reason isn't as death-penalty opponents usually
assume, that their populations eschew the death penalty. In fact, opinion polls
show that Europeans and Canadians want executions almost as much as their
American counterparts do. It's just that their politicians don't listen to
them. In other words, if these countries' political cultures are less pro death
penalty that America's, it's because they're less democratic.
Seen through American eyes, Canada seems almost totally nonviolent. And it's true that Ottawa administered its last execution in 1962 and formally abolished capital punishment for civilians in the mid-'70s (a ban on military executions came in 1998). But public support for the death penalty runs only slightly lower in Canada than in the United States: polls consistently show that between 60 percent and 70 percent of Canadians want it reinstated.
Differences in the way survey questions are framed complicate direct comparisons with Europe. (European polls sometimes pose the question in terms of the death penalty for terrorism, for genocide, for depraved sexual crimes, and so forth.) But, even if you ask the death-penalty question in the more straight forward sense--"Do you support the death penalty for aggravated murder?"--you find very few European countries where the public clearly opposes it, and there are a number where support is very strong. In Britain, the world headquarters of Amnesty International, opinion polls have shown that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the population favors the death penalty--about the same as in the United States. In Italy, which has led the international fight against capital punishment recently, roughly half the population wants it reinstated. In France, clear majorities continued to back the death penalty long after it was abolished in 1981. There is barely a country in Europe where the death penalty was abolished in response to public opinion rather than in spite of it.
How could this be? In a few cases, the reason is constitutional: Germany's and Italy's postwar constitutions abolished capital punishment outright, thus placing the issue effectively beyond public reach. Another factor is the centripetal pressure created by European integration, as cornerstone EU states like France and Germany force smaller newcomers to adopt "European" standards, like abolishing the death penalty. In other words, the newcomers succumb to political and economic blackmail when they join the EU.
Differences between European parliamentary government and the American separation-of-powers system also play a role. Parliamentary government may provide voters with more ideological variety, but it is much more resistant to political newcomers and fresh ideals which may support different political views. In parliamentary systems, people tend to vote for parties, not individuals; and party committees choose which candidates stand for election. As a result, parties are less influenced by the will of the people. In countries like Britain and France, so long as elite opinion remains sufficiently united (which, in the case of the death penalty, it has), public support cannot translate into legislative action. Since American candidates are largely independent and self-selected, they serve as a much more direct conduit between public opinion and actual political action.
Basically, then, Europe doesn't have the death penalty because its political systems are less democratic, or at least more insulated from public opinion, than the U.S. government. And elites know it. Referring to France, a recent article in the UNESCO Courier noted that "action by courageous political leaders has been needed to overcome local public opinion that has remained mostly in favour of the death penalty." When a 1997 poll showed that 49 percent of Swedes wanted the death penalty reinstated, the country's justice minister told a reporter: "They don't really want the death penalty; they are objecting to the increasing violence. I see this as a call to politicians and the justice system to do more."
An American attorney general--or any American politician, for that matter--could never get away with such condescension toward the public, at least not for attribution. Pundits and rival politicians would slam him, and, on most issues, liberals would be first in line. After all, liberals are attached to the idea that they speak for the "little guy," the "working family," or, in Al Gore's recent phraseology, "the people, not the powerful." But, all over the industrialized world, it turns out that most people favor the death penalty. It's just that in Europe and Canada elites have exercised a kind of noblesse oblige. They've chosen a more oligarchical political order over a fully popular and participatory one.
Democratic,
law-abiding, humane Europe?
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