Capital punishment in Romania
Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1990, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.
Antecedents
The
In the Wallachian capital
Two of the leaders of the
Kingdom of Romania
The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 after the unification of the Danubian Principalities, and a Penal Code was enacted in 1864 that did not provide for the death penalty except for several wartime offences. The 1866 Constitution, inspired by the liberal Belgian model of 1831, confirmed the abolition of capital punishment for peacetime crimes.[7] By the end of the 19th century, just six other European countries had abolished the death penalty: Belgium, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal,[8] as well as tiny Republic of San Marino.[9]
Abolition with respect to peacetime crimes was reaffirmed by article 16 of the 1923 Constitution. However, the rising crime rate had produced a shift in favour of capital punishment. The new Criminal Code of 1936 incorporated some sections of the Law despite the drafters' opposition to capital punishment. The 1938 Constitution, which established a royal dictatorship, expanded the scope of capital crimes by authorizing the death penalty for offences against the royal family, against high-ranking public figures, for politically motivated murders, and for killings caused during burglaries. The Penal Code was subsequently amended to implement the constitutional mandate.[10] Under the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, criminal laws became even more repressive. Burglary, theft of weapons, arson, smuggling, and several other crimes were made capital. Also during the period, capital punishment was used as a tool of political repression against some Romanian Communist Party members and anti-German resistance fighters.[10][11] Examples include Francisc Panet and Filimon Sârbu. According to writer Marius Mircu, thirty anti-fascists were executed during the war, of whom all but three were Jews.[12]
Communist Romania
Two statutes dealing with war crimes were passed in 1945; the following year, Antonescu and three of his followers were executed by firing squad.
The propagandistic use was centered on the publicity of the legal provisions and not on particular cases. Counting first on the specific deterrent effect of the executions, the regime used the death penalty mainly to eliminate fascists, saboteurs, traitors or members of the resistance groups, etc. Although it could also directly eliminate them, the authorities decided to follow the legal procedures. This was meant to provide the appearance of legality that aimed to improve the regime's image and also had a general deterrent feature. Although leading jurists debated and attempted to abolish capital punishment in 1956, legal provisions and actual use tightened in 1958 when the Stalinist ruler Gheorghiu-Dej initiated a new wave of repressions.[13]
In 1958, the act of contacting foreigners in order to provoke the state into neutrality or an act of war was made subject to the death penalty; this was a clear reference to measures taken by Imre Nagy during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was made more urgent by the withdrawal of Soviet occupying forces that summer, which led the regime to clamp down on internal dissent. The definition of "economic sabotage" and "hooliganism" was broadened by the decree no, 318/1958, and a fierce campaign against economic criminality lasted for the following two years with 87 executions recorded, 28 of them for embezzlement only.[13]
The period after the penal reform in 1969 was particularly linked to the personality of
The new Penal Code adopted in 1969 featured 28 capital offences, including economic and property crimes. This number was substantially reduced in the 1970s. From 1969 to 1989, 98 death sentences were carried out; among those executed during this period were
During Ceauşescu's entire time in power (1965–89), 104 people were executed by firing squad at
Romania since 1989
On 7 January 1990, shortly after the Ceauşescus were summarily shot, the leaders of the National Salvation Front abolished the death penalty by decree;[3][19] some Romanians saw this as a way for former Communists to escape punishment and demanded reinstatement of the death penalty in a series of protests in January 1990.[20] In response, the leadership scheduled a referendum on the question for 28 January, but cancelled the vote ten days before it was to take place.[18] On 27 February 1991, Romania ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant (Law nr. 7/1991). The constitution, ratified that December, explicitly prohibited the death penalty;[21] the prohibition was retained when an updated version of the constitution was adopted in 2003.[3] The Constitution provides that no amendment is allowed if it were to result in the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms, which has been interpreted to mean that the death penalty may not be reinstated as long as the present constitution is in force. Romania is also subject to the European Convention on Human Rights (since May 1994) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (since January 2007), both abolitionist documents.[21] Ahead of the 2000 presidential election, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who finished in second place, made reintroduction of capital punishment a major plank of his campaign.[18]
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Impalements taking place aroundPrince Vlad
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Site where Horea and Cloşca were executed
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Ion Antonescu being shot by firing squad
See also
Notes
- ISBN 0-88033-220-4.
- OCLC 1279610.
- ^ a b c d e f Ilarion Tiu and Alina Duduciuc, "Constituția și opinia publică. Consensul social privind pedeapsa cu moarteaȚ, Sfera Politicii, 149 (July 2010).
- ISBN 978-973-50-1733-0.
- ISBN 973-270-548-5.
- ISBN 0-8101-1273-6.
- ^ Frankowski, p.216
- ISBN 0-312-17617-1.
- ^ "San Marino". Nessuno tocchi Caino (in Italian). Retrieved 27 September 2023.
- ^ a b Frankowski, p.217
- ^ (in Romanian) Paul Shapiro and Radu Ioanid, "70 de ani de la Pogromul de la Bucureşti" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, Revista 22, 25 January 2011.
- ISBN 0-313-28798-8.
- ^ doi:10.5840/hce201456. Archived from the originalon 2018-05-15.
- ^ a b Frankowski, p.220. One Romanian expert has noted that the criminal law was turned into a tool to repress "enemies", with combating criminality a secondary role.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4724-1220-1.
- ^ a b Frankowski, p.224
- ^ Jurnalul Naţional, 16 August 2004.
- ^ a b c (in Romanian) Cristian Delcea, "Pedeapsa cu moartea, o problemă care a divizat România" ("Capital Punishment, a Problem That Has Divided Romania"), Adevărul, 25 July 2014.
- ISBN 0-19-925129-0.
- ISBN 1-57181-111-7.
- ^ a b Frankowski, p.227
References
- Stanislaw Frankowski, "Post-Communist Europe", in Peter Hodgkinson and Andrew Rutherford (eds.), Capital Punishment: Global Issues and Prospects. Waterside Press (1996), ISBN 1-872870-32-5.
- Radu Stancu, "The Political Use of Capital Punishment in Communist Romania between 1969 and 1989", in Peter Hodgkinson (ed.), Capital Punishment. New Perspectives. Ashgate (2013), ISBN 978-1-4724-1220-1.
- Radu Stancu, "The Political Use of Capital Punishment as a Legitimation Strategy of the Communist Regime in Romania, 1944-1958", History of Communism in Europe, 5 (2014), 106–130, ISBN 978-606-8266-97-8.