International Experience and Legal Regulation of the Application of the Death Penalty in Tajikistan  Khalifabobo Khamidov As a form of punishment under criminal law, the death penalty has its roots way back in history. It has been applied continuously since time immemorial. Moreover, the need for the death penalty was founded on the following passages from the Bible: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed”; “One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death”; and “But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.”10 The idea expressed by the ancient Chinese philosopher Han Fei that the execution of a robber is designed to improve others has united opponents of the death penalty in both the past and the present. He believed that severe punishment for a single evil deed would put a stop to all falsehood within the state and that this is how order is created.11 Given the influence of this philosophy and the lack of development of individual rights in past times, the death penalty was widely used. The blood-feud legacy was lavished so generously by the state that there was a time when the death penalty was an entirely normal occurrence and was applied as punishment for any significant criminal act whatsoever. This picture was a common one, entirely in keeping with the state of legislation and practices in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The celebrated code of King Charles V, Carolina, prescribes the death penalty for 44 crimes. According to calculations made by Louis Pasteur, pre-revolutionary legislation in France   Translated from the Russian by Simon Clarke. Minister of justice of Tajikistan. 10 See the Bible: Genesis 9:6, Exodus 21:12, Exodus 21:14; Navishtai Mukaddas, Akhdi Kadim va Akhdi Chadid (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 26, 124. A similar idea is contained in sura 2 ayat 177 of the Koran: “Oh you those who came to believe! Retribution is prescribed to you for the people that have been killed: a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, a woman for a woman.” M.M. Sherbatov, Razmyshleniya o smertnoi kazni, from the works of Prince M.M. Sherbatov, Vol. 1, Politicheskie sochineniya (St. Petersburg, 1859); Antologiya mirovoi pravovoi mysli, Vol. IV, pp. 363-370 (this collection of works will hereinafter be referred to as “Anthology”); S.E. Desnitskii, Slovo o prichinakh smertnykh kaznei po delam kriminalnym – Iuridicheskie proizvedeniya progressivnykh russkikh myslitelei (Moscow, 1959), in Anthology, Vol. IV, pp. 385-387. 11 Han Fei, Treatise: “Han Feizi”, in Anthology, Vol. I, p. 505. 27