Capital punishment in Russia has been indefinitely suspended, although it is legally allowed (with the only method being shooting). There exists both an implicit moratorium established by the President and an explicit one, established by the nation's highest court. Russia has not executed anyone since 1996, and the regulations of the Council of Europe prohibit it from doing so at any time in the future. However, the death penalty still remains codified.
In the recent years, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia will retain its moratorium at least until 2010. In November 2009, the Constitutional Court of Russia extended the ban.
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital, punishment and/or russia:
“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Many of us do not believe in capital punishment, because thus society takes from a man what society cannot give.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime—
The punishment fit the crime;”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“In Russia there is an emigration of intelligence: émigrés cross the frontier in order to read and to write good books. But in doing so they contribute to making their fatherland, abandoned by spirit, into the gaping jaws of Asia that would like to swallow our little Europe.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)