IX Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2017

This article examines philosophical and legal questions of the death penalty as the means of the criminal sanction. The author evaluates the pros and cons of this phenomenon, the moral and ethical issues. In the article author reveals the legal aspects of the death penalty and the compliance of such punishment requirements of the law.

The Russian Constitution provides the application of the death penalty as the punishment form in our country. In April 6, 1997 Russia signed the Protocol № 6 of the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms relating to the abolition of the death penalty.

In a certain way Russia imposed a moratorium on this form of the punishment, but it wasn`t excluded both from the Constitution and from the Criminal Code.

Every violent crime edge people to return death penalty, at least it sounds so from opposing views on human rights defenders.

In legal aspects the existence of the death penalty does not correspond to concepts of the rule of law primarily enshrined in the Russian Constitution. Analysis of death penalty issues in terms of protection of fundamental human rights gives a new focus of view, the changes of emphasis and requires different approaches. Mainly in this case there should be the awareness that the problem of death penalty can`t be separated from the general concept of human rights and is incompatible with it, because the penalty violates its rights and, above all, it violates the right to life. With this approach, the death penalty - is not so much a legal issue as a humanitarian problem¹.

On the other hand, death penalty as a form of punishment is the most effective and sometimes necessary. Currently in our country, the most severe punishment is life imprisonment. However, is such a penalty valid for the man who killed dozens of people? Hundreds of maniacs and pedophiles live quietly in prison, being fully provided for by the state. Their right to life is saved by the law, but they ignored these rights belonging to their victims.

A weighty argument against capital punishment is a number of wrong sentences of courts, which cancelled subsequent decisions. In the application of death penalty is a way back.

Death penalty is really a powerful deterrent to criminals. Will people dare to commit a murder knowing that they can suffer the same fate? Moreover, there are cases where the perpetrator of the attempted murder rescued the victim, because he knew that eventually he was going to the ‘electric chair’. Thus, the death penalty is the most important and most effective factor in reducing the crime rate.

On the other hand, applying the death penalty, the legislator acts in the same way as the criminal. Protecting the life of one man, he deprives the other. A man who executes the sentence also commits the murder and I do not feel worthy of excuse that he will do his work. This work will make a criminal of him.

According to the European Convention on Human Right "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.²" but do most kinds of the death penalty are not cruel? The hanging, firing squad, electrocution, beheading and this is not an exhaustive list. What will happen to the country whose citizens are watching as the fourth resident of the country or enter his lethal injection?

"The creature am I shivering or the right I have?" - wondered Rodion Raskolnikov³. He reasoned that "higher" people must cross the sake of their ideas even if through the body, through the bloodstream. A man is endowed with the state power. Can it solve the problem of human life and death?

This question doesn’t have a single answer. Despite all the advantages of the death penalty we can’t fail to notice the main thing. In a modern state of law we can’t speak about lawfully deprivation of the person's life, even of the criminal. In this way to legitimize the murder we can go back to the Middle Ages. As a progressive democratic state the Russian Federation should follow the legal path. I believe that the man's natural right to life can`t be limited by anything and the death penalty must forever be forgotten by the modern society.

1 In Quasis.E.The death penalty.World trends,problems and prospects.-M.: Yurayt.,2008.-P.4

2 The European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms

3 F.M.Dostoevsky. Crime and punishment. - L.: Nauka. Leningr. otd-nie, 1973

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