The Communist Party has announced that it will step up its fight against corruption by pushing for an amendment to legislation that suspends capital punishment indefinitely.
The proposal, which will be submitted in May, seeks to extend capital punishment to grievous crimes and economic ones.
Deputy Vadim Solovyov, a supporter of the law, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that it should be possible to execute government officials who take bribes exceeding 1 million rubles ($28,000) or embezzle public funds.
Capital punishment is the only tool that "can instil order among both criminals and bureaucrats," Solovyov said.
Capital punishment is codified by Russian law, but has not been used since 1996 when President Boris Yeltsin put a moratorium over it. In 1999 the Constitutional Court legalized the moratorium, a step that was reaffirmed in 2009.
According to a 2013 conducted by Levada Center, an independent pollster, 54 percent of Russians support capital punishment, down from 61 percent in 2012. Nevertheless, the government has been reluctant to bow to public opinion with President Vladimir Putin saying that such a measure would be “inadvisable.”
In addition, Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, which forbids its members from carrying out capital punishment at any time.
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