Death_Penalty_2005_nowy.qxd 2005-09-08 17:00 Page 16 THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE OSCE AREA Moratorium There is no moratorium on executions. In 2000, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe urged the Belarusian authorities to declare an immediate moratorium on executions and set in motion the legislative procedure for the abolition of capital punishment.35 On 11 March 2004, the Constitutional Court concluded its assessment of the compliance of the death-penalty provisions in the Criminal Code with the Constitution, following a request from the House of Representatives of the National Assembly. The Court found a number of provisions of the Criminal Code to be inconsistent with the Constitution,36 thus providing for the possibility of either the abolition of the death penalty or the imposition of a moratorium on executions as the first step towards full abolition. The Court recalled that such measures may be enacted by the head of state and the National Assembly. On 24 June 2005, the president of Belarus submitted a draft law to the parliament that, inter alia, supplements the Criminal Code with a reference to the temporary character of the death penalty, which, until its abolition, may be applied as an exceptional measure for cases of premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances. On 29 June 2005, the chairperson of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly, Vladimir Konoplev, spoke at a press conference about the possibility of introducing a moratorium for a certain period. On 11 July 2005, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration and the chairperson of the Clemency Commission, Natalya Petkevich, announced that the death penalty could be abolished when certain social preconditions were in place. She also stated that the Belarusian authorities could not abolish the death penalty at the moment because 85 per cent of the population voted to retain the death penalty in a referendum in 1996; thus, she said, the results of that referendum could be overturned only by another referendum. Method of execution Shooting37 35 36 37 Recommendation 1441, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 26 January 2000. Articles 48 (Part 1, Paragraph 11) and 59 have been found to be inconsistent with the Constitution due to the lack of reference, in those articles, to the temporary character of the death penalty. Article 59(1), Criminal Code. 16