On December 30, 1999, the Constitutional Court ruled...

On December 30, 1999, the Constitutional Court ruled that the articles on the death penalty in the criminal code violated the principle of respect for human life and were unconstitutional. The articles and points of the Ukrainian criminal code which were found to be unconstitutional were abolished with immediate effect. The Ukrainian Supreme Council [parliament] was obliged to bring the Ukrainian criminal code into line with the ruling. The government of Ukraine had originally committed itself to sign and ratify Protocol No. 6 within three years of its accession to the Council of Europe. By the deadline of November 1998 it had not done so, although a moratorium on executions was introduced in March 1997. In 1999 the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly threatened to annul the credentials of the Ukrainian delegation if progress was not made towards reforms on human rights. At the end of December 1999, 400 prisoners were reportedly under sentence of death in the Ukraine, but the last execution was carried out in March 1997. Those on death row included serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko, convicted of murdering 52 people. Many Ukrainians favoured retaining the death penalty as crime rates soared after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.