The final declaration of the world congress for the abolition of capital punishment, held in Strasbourg “It is ever more urgent that the inalienable dignity of human life be universally respected and recognized due to its incalculable value… The universal abolition of the death sentence would bear courageous witness to humanity’s capacity to tackle criminality without succumbing to despair”. So Msgr. Paul Gallagher, special envoy of the Holy See to the Council of Europe, reaffirmed the Holy See’s firm repudiation of capital punishment at the 1st world congress for the abolition of the death sentence, held in Strasbourg in recent days. Promoted by the Community of St. Egidio and the association “Together against the death sentence”, with the support of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, the congress was also attended by the presidents of Parliaments in five continents, who signed an appeal for a moratorium on the execution of those condemned to death. “ The death sentence is an act of torture and a cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment“. So declare the abolitionist associations in the final declaration of the congress. Requesting a world moratorium on capital executions, the associations invite all States to “ratify the international and regional conventions and treaties in favour of abolition, to remove the death sentence from their statute books, to put an end to the executions of those sentenced to death who are mentally impaired, or below adult age, and to publish in a regular and transparent way communications on those sentenced to death and their conditions of detention”. The declaration also invites the Council of Europe and the European Union to review “the compatibility of the observer status of the United States and Japan with their application of capital punishment” and urges “Turkey, Russia and Armenia to abolish the death sentence for all crimes”. “The world moratorium on capital executions requested in the final declaration at Strasbourg is intended as a way of easing the way for those States that still believe in the death sentence as an instrument of Justice”, comments Mario Marazziti, spokesman of the Community of St. Egidio. “Putting executions on hold – he explains – is a helping hand stretched out to those countries that today would have difficulties in abolishing capital punishment because the cultural climate is not favourable and public opinion is not ready”. “We wanted this moratorium, to be extended at the planetary level – he adds – as a step towards the total abolition of capital punishment”. But apart from the moratorium, the spokesman of St. Egidio continued, “the Strasbourg congress represented the first step towards the birth of a world network comprising all the groups campaigning for the abolition of the death sentence”. The final declaration of the abolitionist associations was echoed by the appeal that eighteen presidents of Parliaments signed in Strasbourg. A solemn document in which the presidents, including Pieferdinando Casini for Italy, appealed to all States “to implement a moratorium on the executions of those sentenced to death throughout the world and take measures aimed at abolishing the death sentence from their national legislation”. The Presidents recognise that “the carrying out of capital punishment is irreparable and often discriminatory” and recall that the Council of Europe and the European Union “have performed meaningful actions and adopted meaningful juridical instruments [against the death sentence]: in particular protocol 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, aimed at the abolition of the death sentence in peacetime, and the Nice Charter of 7 December 2000 reaffirming that no one may be condemned to death and executed”. It is also recognised that “at the international level a political consensus favourable to the abolition of the death sentence is being formed”. The signatories of the appeal, apart from Italy and the Presidents of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, and of the Council of Europe, Russel Johnston, include the presidents of the parliaments of Belgium, Holland, Greece, France, Austria, Spain, Ukraine and Portugal in Europe, Ivory Coast in Africa, Cambodia in Asia and Chile in Latin America. D.R.
