13/02/2014 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC), the general rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has welcomed yesterday’s announcement by the Governor of Washington that he will suspend executions in his state.
“I congratulate Governor Inslee on his far-sighted and humane declaration. He is quite right that the death penalty is used unequally and inconsistently. It is also – as we in the Council of Europe have long argued – inhumane and wrong. I hope that Washington State will soon remove the death penalty from its statute book altogether, joining the 18 other US states that have already done so.”
No executions are carried out in the 47 member States of the Council of Europe.