ABSTRACT: The resolution (reported by Adelaide Aglietta) affirms the principle that no state can dispose of the lives of its citizens by providing for the death penalty as a result of even the most serious crimes. Besides asking for the abolition of the death penalty - and the signing of international treaties to this effect - by the states of the European Community, the resolution also supports the task of working everywhere for its abolition as a legitimate duty. It appeals to those member states of the European Council and the CSCE [Conference for European Development and Co-operation], which still contemplate the death penalty, asking for its abolition. It asks the organisms and states of the E.C. to work at the U.N. for the imposition of a general moratorium and to direct its own foreign policy and the policies for economic co-operation agreements to consider the aBolition of the death penalty a fundamental condition, and to promote a vast information campaign. Finally, it asks the Community's instituti

ons and member states to intercede with the states maintaining the death penalty for the imposition of limitations on it (with regard, for example, to minors, pregnant women, mental defectives, old people, etc.) and for the broadest trial guarantees to defendants.

The European Parliament:

- in view of arts. 3 and 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

- in view of the European Convention on Human Rights and art. 1 of the Sixth Additional Protocol to said Convention which went into effect in 1985:

- in view of art. 6 of the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the Additional Protocol adopted in 1989 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which went into effect in June 1991 after the tenth ratification;

- in view of art. 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights;

- in view of the 1957 European Convention on Extradition;

- in view of the UNO resolution on the death penalty no. 32/61 if December 8, 1977, no. 35/172 of December 15, 1980, no. 1984/50 of May 2, 1984 and no. 39/118 of December 14, 1984;

- in view of its preceding resolutions of June 18, 1981 on the abolition of the death penalty in the Community and of January 17, 1986 on the abolition of the death penalty and the adherence to the Sixth Protocol of the Convention to Safeguard Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;

- in view of the ACP-EEC Assembly (248/90) resolution adopted September 27, 1990 on the death penalty in the ACP-EEC countries;

- in view of the proposed resolutions doc. B3-605/89, B3-682/90, and B3 1915/90;

A. pointing out with alarm that the death penalty today is still on the books of 132 states, out of a total of 181, of the international community (in 116 for ordinary crimes, and in 16 for exceptional crimes) and that it is still applied in 96 countries, of which some are political democracies;

B. pointing out that numerous countries, even of a democratic order, apply the death penalty in circumstances explicitly excluded by the international conventions on human rights (for example, minors and the mentally ill);

C. emphasising that in non-democratic countries the death penalty is still very often used to limit several fundamental liberties such as political, religious, and sexual freedom, freedom of speech and association, and thus as tool for striking at dissidents or even simply minorities;

D. emphasising that very often the death penalty is inflicted where there are no judicial or trial guarantees;

E. it having been demonstrated that condemnation to death is susceptible to error, which has resulted and can still result in the execution of innocent victims, and that such sentences are often influenced by social disparities and ethnic prejudices;

F. happy about the intention of Belgium to abolish capital punishment, as foreseen in a bill to be presented to the legislative chambers;

1. maintains that no state, and with greater reason, no democratic state, may dispose of the lives of its citizens or of those of other people who find themselves on its territories, by providing for the death penalty in its ordinances as a consequence of crimes however serious;

2. maintains that the commitment to work for the abolition of the death penalty wherever it is foreseen and applied can be a legitimate duty;

3. asks, consequently - consistent with the Sixth Additional Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights and with the Second Optional Protocol of the International Treaty on Civil and Political Rights - that all member states commit themselves to abolish the death penalty from the judicial regulations which still contemplate it for ordinary crimes (Greece and Belgium, even if these two countries have not applied it for a number of decades);

4. asks, as well, that all members states that still contemplate it, abolish the death penalty;

5. asks all EC member states that still have not done so, to sign and/or ratify without further delay the Sixth Additional Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights (Belgium, Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom) as well as the Optional Protocol to the International Treaty on Civil and Political Rights;

6. furthermore, also asks all the member states to commit themselves to not concede the extradition of accused persons threatened with capital punishment by the country requesting such extradition unless this latter gives sufficient guarantees that this will not happen;

7. hopes that the commitment to abolish capital punishment will be assumed by the member states of the European Council that have not yet done so (Cyprus, Malta, and Switzerland for exceptional crimes, Turkey and Poland for ordinary and exceptional crimes) and the same for the member states of the CSCE that still contemplate the death penalty in their ordinances (Bulgaria, the United States of America, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Latvia, Albania);

8. all of this considered, asks the Commission and the Council of the member states to use all political and diplomatic means for having the death penalty abolished in all those states where it is still contemplated until it is totally eliminated;

9. consequently asks the Council and the Commission and, to the degree that it is in their competence, the member states too:

a) to obtain at the UNO a binding generalised moratorium on the death penalty;

b) direct its foreign policy and in particular the policies of economic agreements and co-operation with consideration of the full respect for human rights and in particular the abolition of the death penalty as a fundamental condition to be kept in mind in the awareness that the EC's negotiating power will be weak for as long as some member states exist that provide for the death penalty in their ordinances;

c) promote a vast information campaign not only of the Parliament's positions but also of the ideas that oppose the maintenance of the death penalty in the judicial ordinances of any country whatsoever for the purpose of thoroughly instructing and sensitising public opinion to the uselessness and unacceptability of capital punishment;

10. furthermore at the same time believes it to be necessary in fighting the death sentence to intervene with determination in limiting and opposing its application; to this end it asks the Community's institutions and the member states to intercede with the states that still contemplate the death penalty so that they will immediately

a) cease to pronounce and carry out death sentences against all those who at the time of the crime were still under eighteen years old, against women who are pregnant or who have small children, against the old, the ill, or the mentally retarded

b) guarantee a fair trial to all defendants, and with all the more reason to those accused of crimes for which the death penalty is prescribed, and more specifically that

- the defendant be considered innocent until proven guilty;

- the defendant be guaranteed the aid of a lawyer and the possibility of managing his defence with the knowledge of the charges and with the juridical means for countering them with witnesses and evidence that absolve him;

- the trial be public;

- the guaranteed possibility of appeal against a sentence of guilty;

11. believes that the question of extra-judiciary "executions" is even more grave than the one analysed in the present resolution and thus invites its own political commission to work out a report on this theme;

12. charges the Chairman to pass on the present resolution to the Commission, the Council, the European Political Co-operation Organisation, the governments and parliaments of the member states, European Council, the CSCE, the Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation.