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Resolution 1044 (1994)

Abolition of capital punishment

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 4 October 1994 (25th Sitting) (see Doc. 7154, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Rapporteur: Mr Franck). Text adopted by the Assembly on 4 October 1994 (25th Sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the abolition of capital punishment for offences committed both in war- and in peacetime in Greece on 16 December 1993, which provides an excellent example for other countries to follow.
2. The Assembly regrets that Liechtenstein, Turkey and Ukraine did not reply to the questionnaire on the death penalty sent to them, as to all member countries and to those whose legislative assemblies hold special guest status, by the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in March 1994.
3. In view of the irrefutable arguments against the imposition of capital punishment, it calls on the parliaments of all member states of the Council of Europe, and of all states whose legislative assemblies enjoy special guest status at the Assembly, which retain capital punishment for crimes committed in peacetime and/or in wartime, to strike it from their statute books completely.
4. The Assembly also urges all its members to personally take action to seek such abolition of capital punishment in their countries.
5. It invites all member states of the Council of Europe who have not yet done so, to sign and ratify Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights without delay.
6. The adequate implementation of the additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights should be a matter of continuous concern to the Assembly and the willingness to ratify the protocol be made a prerequisite for membership of the Council of Europe.
7. The Assembly calls upon all the parliaments in the world which have not yet abolished the death penalty to do so promptly, following the example of the majority of Council of Europe member states.
8. Finally, it urges all heads of state and all parliaments in whose countries death sentences are passed to grant clemency to the convicted