28/09/2020 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Titus Corlăţean (Romania, SOC), General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, has welcomed the decision by the Kazakh authorities to abolish the death penalty entirely by signing the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
“This decision shows the determination to combat this cruel and inhuman penalty and follow the growing abolitionist trend. Kazakhstan, which is an important partner of the Council of Europe in the context of its Neighbourhood Policy, has thus joined the 106 states over the entire world which have abolished the death penalty in law for every type of crime”, he said. ”I invite the Kazakh authorities to ratify the Second Protocol to the ICCPR as quickly as possible and take all the necessary legislative measures to eradicate the death penalty from their national criminal system”.
“This decision is in keeping with our common values, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international treaties, and with the principles laid down in Assembly Resolution 2193 (2017)”, concluded the rapporteur.
***
On 23 September 2020, the permanent representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, Kairat Umarov, signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. Since May 2003, there have been no executions in Kazakhstan, but some serious crimes were still punishable by the death penalty.