In the past few years, some high-ranking Tajik officials have again spoken about the need to abolish the moratorium and return the death penalty for a number of serious crimes.
In particular, the Prosecutor General of Tajikistan, Yusuf Rahmon, at the last press conference, August 15 this year, once again stated that the death penalty should be applied as punishment for certain types of crimes.
“I stand firmly on my position. I am in favor of applying the death penalty to incorrigible criminals; to criminals who have committed two or three murders; to terrorists who have committed serious crimes damaging the reputation of the state and the nation, and to other grave crimes,” Yusuf Rahmon said.
7 years ago, on August 4, 2016, during a press conference, answering a journalist’s question about the possible abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty, the Prosecutor General also stated that he “has a positive opinion about the introduction of the death penalty in Tajikistan.”
Yusuf Rahmon is not the only Tajik official who supports the death penalty for serious crimes. Before him, Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rakhimzoda said he was “against the abolition of the death penalty.” At the time, he said, “sometimes serious crimes are committed that cannot be forgiven.”
More than 19 years have passed since the moratorium was introduced on July 15, 2004, when the parliament passed the Law on Suspension of the Death Penalty. This type of punishment is not used in Tajikistan and is now replaced in most cases by long or life sentences.
What offenses carry the death penalty?
Until 2003, the death penalty in Tajikistan had been applied under fifteen articles of the Criminal Code. Then the articles under which the death penalty was applied were reduced to five. These are Article 104 (murder), Article 399 (biocide – use of nuclear, neutron, chemical, biological (bacteriological), climatic or other weapons of mass destruction), Article 398 (genocide), Article 179 (terrorism), Article 138 (rape).
Until 2004, Tajikistan ranked first among OSCE member states in terms of the number of death sentences (based on population). These findings are based on unofficial information, as official information remains confidential.
According to the monitoring report of the public organization “Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law” conducted in 2004, 133 death sentences were carried out in Tajikistan between 2001 and 2003. Most of them were carried out in 2001 – 68 death sentences.
For women, adolescents and the elderly, the death penalty was completely abolished in 2004.
Today courts in Tajikistan apply life imprisonment, which replaced the death penalty, but the number of people convicted under this sentence is not known. In 2022 alone, 14 people were sentenced to life imprisonment in Tajikistan.
The abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty was not discussed in parliament
The decision to abolish the moratorium on the death penalty is within the competence of the parliament and the president of the country.
Saidjafar Usmonzoda, head of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan and a member of the country’s parliament since 2015, said that during his tenure, the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty has never been discussed in parliament.
“Tajikistan is a state governed by the rule of law, and abolishing the moratorium on the death penalty is not in line with the principles of our statehood,” Saidjafar Usmonzoda said.
Although the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty has never been officially considered, in 2013, during his annual address to the country’s parliament, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon pointed to the issue and stated that “the competent bodies should reconsider the death penalty.”
Are Tajikistan’s investigative and judicial systems ready for the abolition of the death penalty?
Tajikistan’s moratorium on the death penalty was introduced when the country was just emerging from a long civil war and the judicial system was in crisis. There was a high likelihood of errors in investigation and sentencing that would lead to the death of an innocent person.
But even almost 20 years after the moratorium was declared, experts still insist on its preservation due to the imperfection of the investigative and judicial bodies, their dependence on the executive branch and the lack of guarantees of full justice during sentencing.
Oinikhol Bobonazarova, a Tajik human rights activist and lawyer, emphasizes the importance of the independence of the investigative and judicial systems and says the moratorium on the death penalty should be maintained.
“Both the investigative and judicial systems are not independent [in Tajikistan], they depend on the executive branch. This causes a lot of errors in sentencing,” Bobonazarova said.
Although such mistakes do occur in countries with independent judicial systems, they delay the execution of the death penalty for a long time and thus prevent it from being applied incorrectly.
Another Tajik jurist, Bakhodur Razzokov, agrees, saying that Tajikistan’s investigative and judicial system is not ready for the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty.
“The republic’s judicial system cannot impose such an exceptional punishment because the risk of judicial errors is still high,” says Bakhodur Razzakov.
Indeed, in recent years there have been cases of wrongful imprisonment of innocent people in Tajikistan.
An example of this is the high-profile case of Khasan Yodgorov, a 34-year-old resident of the city of Tursunzade, who was found guilty of murdering Dmitri Karimov, a 42-year-old waiter at a restaurant in this city, and was held in custody for 8 months. Only after the arrest of Leonid Malchenkov, whom the investigating authorities identified as the real killer, Yodgorov was found not guilty and released. This shows that the investigative and judicial systems of the country make mistakes.
It should be noted that a criminal case was brought against Khasan Yodgorov under Article 104 of the Criminal Code “Murder”, an article that provided for the death penalty before the moratorium was introduced.
Consequences of abolishing the moratorium
Given the imperfection of the country’s investigative and judicial system and the possibility of errors in sentencing, experts negatively assess the consequences of lifting the moratorium on the death penalty in Tajikistan.
Shokirjon Khakimov, a doctor of law and deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan, said lifting the moratorium on the death penalty would make it impossible to review a case and impose a fair sentence.
The courts do not ensure equal rights for participants in court proceedings, which also reduces the likelihood of a fair verdict, he said. There is also a low level of knowledge of authorized investigative officers and judges, lack of transparency, imperfect personnel policy, corruption and other undesirable phenomena.
“All this leads to the likelihood of failure to observe the presumption of innocence and the possibility of making mistakes when considering cases on the merits,” Shokirjon Khakimov emphasizes.
Although life imprisonment has a negative impact on a person’s mental and psychological state, he said, it still allows in exceptional cases and when new evidence is discovered to reconsider a case and pass a fair sentence.
Saidjafar Usmonzoda also believes that the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty eliminates the possibility of eliminating the mistakes made. He says that one has to take into account the human factor, in which there is a possibility of mistakes.
“In some cases, maybe the investigation may not be done completely or the investigator may make a mistake, the witness or the victim may lie or he may make a mistake. Where there is a human being, there is always the possibility of error. And if in such a situation, i.e. by human error, an innocent person is sentenced to death, it will be impossible to correct the mistake,” Usmonzoda said.
In addition, given Tajikistan’s imperfect judicial system, if the moratorium on the death penalty is lifted, “democratic states will refuse Tajikistan’s requests to extradite its citizens accused of committing crimes,” Oynikhol Bobonazarova said.
“The death penalty does not contribute to reform and does not prevent serious crimes”
Most experts believe that the return of the death penalty will not reduce crime and will not prevent serious crimes.
In particular, Shakirjon Khakimov notes that it is impossible to reform society by using the death penalty or strengthening repressive methods. On the contrary, it is more effective to guarantee equality of citizens before the law, court and justice.
Human rights organizations are also convinced that many factors influence the crime rate: from poverty and lack of education to the mental state of the criminal, but not the fear of the death penalty.
It is worth noting that although Tajikistan has adopted and ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the basis of which it declared a moratorium on the death penalty, the country has not yet signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The aim of that instrument was the total abolition of the death penalty.
The death penalty is still referred to in article 18 of the country’s Constitution: “No one may be deprived of life except by a court sentence for a particularly grave crime.”
It is this article of the Constitution that some Tajik officials refer to when they believe that a general referendum is needed to completely abolish the death penalty. Meanwhile, at the last such referendum held in the country in 2016, there was no mention of abolishing the death penalty.
Thus, among the countries of Europe and Central Asia, Tajikistan, along with Russia and Belarus, remains one of the few countries where the death penalty has not been completely abolished. In Tajikistan and Russia a moratorium on the execution of the death penalty has been declared, in Belarus this type of punishment is still applied.
More than 50 countries in the world have the death penalty, most of them African and Arab countries.
Such countries as the United States and Japan have not abandoned capital punishment, and the death penalty is also applied there. Among Tajikistan’s neighbors, the death penalty is applied only in China and Afghanistan.