To the President of Ukrainian Republic
Mr Leonid M. Kravchuk;
to the Supreme Council of Ukrainian Republic
We, undersigned persons, call the President of Ukrainian Republic and its Supreme Council to make an important step on the way to democracy, respect of individual rights and state of law, which was choosen by independent Ukraine.
We request President of the Country to abolish immediately all the death senteces passed in Ukraine till now.
We call Ukrainian Supreme Council to pay attention to the Articles 3 and 4 of Universal Declaration for Human Rights, many resolutions adopted by UN and European Parliament and, first of all, the last EP resolution, passed at March 12 this year, which urges to abolish death penalty in all the CSCE states. We call Ukrainian parliament to change the legislation as soon as it is possible in order to exclude all the norms providing death penalty.
We are consider that even against the hardened criminals execution by death has not to be used. A State cannot respond to a criminal behaviour with an equally cruel practice. As an alternative to the capital punishment in Ukrainian law we propose to examine the question about the reasonable increase of maximum terms of imprisonment for the most havy crimes.
We are consider that some basic human rights have to be layed as a foundation of the new born Ukrainian democracy, first of all - the right of each human being not to be killed as an effect of the decision of any state authority, for any reason.
It is difficult to overestimate that importance - not only humanitarian, but also the political one - which could have excluding of death penalty from its legislation by Ukraine: the first country of ex-Soviet Union, which was called "evil empire" not long ago.
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First signatures of Ukrainian members of parliament (on the situation at 30 June, 1992):
Vladimir MOSKOVKA, Jurij ZBITNEV, Galina VASILJEVA, Svetlana OSTROUSHENKO, Anatolij POPERNJAK, Vasyl RUDYK, Valerij CHURAKOV, Boris MOKIN, Genrih ALTUNJAN, Stepan PAVLJUK, Boris MELNIK, Mihajlo BATIG, Vitalij MELNICHUK, Jakiv ZAJKO, Bogdan KOZJARSKIJ.
The general number of signatures (on the situation at 30 June, 1992): 268.
