The Latvian Cabinet of Ministers' committee approved...

The Latvian Cabinet of Ministers' committee approved amendments to several laws in order to harmonize these laws with the international protocol aimed at the abolition of the death penalty.
Amended will be the Criminal Process Code, Criminal Law, and the law on the Criminal Law's taking effect. For instance, the death penalty, is to be crossed out of the Criminal Law's Article 118 - murder with unmitigated circumstances.
The State Chancellery said however that several more articles of the Criminal Law must be amended, as well as the code for implementing penalties and the Amnesty Law. These amendments will be worked out by the Ministry of Justice and will be submitted to the government, along with the amendments approved today, as urgent.
Latvia has acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, passed on December 16, 1966. Currently, a bill is being worked out so that Latvia can accede to the covenant's protocol aimed at the abolition of the death penalty.