EU – Baltic States, Law and Regulations, Legislation, Lithuania

Latvia signed the above protocol in May 2002.

Protocol No. 13 states that the death penalty shall be abolished and no one shall be condemned to such penalty, for the right to life is a basic value in a democratic society during war and peace, reports LETA.

The law will provide complete equality during war and peace and will provide the guarantee to people's basic right – the right to life.

Starting from September 1996, a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Latvia determines that no convict shall be applied or executed such a penalty. Nonetheless, it can only be applied for a murder under aggravated circumstances.

Recommendations by the European Parliament's (EP) Parliamentary Assembly call the death penalty, even in the period of war, counter to the latest tendencies, and nations have to do everything possible to completely abolish it.

One of the EP's priorities is to urge all of its member states to ratify Protocol No. 13. Member states have to regularly inform the EP about their plans to ratify the protocol and about the challenges they face during the process of ratification.

By now, the protocol has not been ratified by six member states – Armenia, Poland, Spain, France, Italy and Latvia. France and Italy are planning to do so in near future.

The Parliamentary Assembly also keeps a close watch on the ratification process. In 1994, it stated in its recommendations that the death penalty does not have a rational explanation, whereas in 2006 it approved the ratification to be the priority for all EP member states and urged Latvia and other countries to introduce changes in their criminal laws to exclude the possibility of applying the death penalty in time of war.

The United Nations (U.N.) has also recently raised the issue about complete abolition of the death penalty and has implemented measures to favor the ratification of U.N.'s Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.