Capital punishment in Romania

The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad the Impaler (reigned in Wallachia, principally 1456–62) was notorious for executing thousands by impalement. One of his successors, Constantine Hangerli, was strangled, shot, stabbed and beheaded by the Ottomans in 1799. In Moldavia, the earliest reference to executions is found in a 1646 text from the time of Vasile Lupu, while in Wallachia, a similar mention from 1652 dates to Matei Basarab's reign. Both stipulate that particularly serious offenses such as treason, patricide or abduction of women merit execution. Only the metropolitan could grant clemency, provided the condemned either lost his land to the church or, together with his family, became its serf. In the Wallachian capital Bucharest, men condemned for theft, counterfeiting, treason, for being pretenders or haiduks, their sentence hanging around their necks, would be taken in oxcarts from Curtea Veche along Calea Moşilor (then called Podul Târgului de Afară, or "Bridge of the Outside Market") to the marketplace in question. The bodies of the hanged would be left in place for a long period as food for crows. Anton Maria Del Chiaro, writing in 1718, noted that at every tavern along the way, the women inside would emerge with cups of wine, asking the man to drink deeply so he would not be afraid to die. If his mother or wife accompanied him, they too would urge him to drink, and at the time of hanging he would be dizzy and unaware of what was happening. The public marketplace executions were banned by Grigore IV Ghica (1822–1828). The first debates on complete abolition had taken place in the mid-18th century, the most vocal supporter being Constantin Mavrocordat, who ruled four times in Moldavia and six in Wallachia between 1730 and 1769. However, a rise in crime in the early 19th century led to a revival of the practice. In Wallachia, the Caragea Law of 1818 provided executions for premeditated murder, counterfeiting money, manslaughter with a weapon and robbery. In Moldavia, the Callimachi Code of 1817 allowed the death penalty for homicide, patricide, robbery, poisoning and arson. Liviu Rebreanu's 1922 novel Pădurea spânzuraţilor ("Forest of the Hanged"), as well as its 1965 film adaptation, draws upon the experience of his brother Emil, hanged for desertion in 1917, shortly before Austria-Hungary dissolved and Transylvania united with Romania. ==Kingdom of Romania==

The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 after the unification of the Danubian Principalities, and a Penal Code was enacted in 1864 that did not provide for the death penalty except for several wartime offences. The 1866 Constitution, inspired by the liberal Belgian model of 1831, confirmed the abolition of capital punishment for peacetime crimes. By the end of the 19th century, just six other European countries had abolished the death penalty: Belgium, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal, as well as the tiny Republic of San Marino. Abolition with respect to peacetime crimes was reaffirmed by article 16 of the 1923 Constitution. However, the rising crime rate had produced a shift in favour of capital punishment. The new Criminal Code of 1936 incorporated some sections of the Law despite the drafters' opposition to capital punishment. The 1938 Constitution, which established a royal dictatorship, expanded the scope of capital crimes by authorizing the death penalty for offences against the royal family, against high-ranking public figures, for politically motivated murders, and for killings caused during burglaries. The Penal Code was subsequently amended to implement the constitutional mandate. Under the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, criminal laws became even more repressive. Burglary, theft of weapons, arson, smuggling, and several other crimes were made capital. Also during the period, capital punishment was used as a tool of political repression against some Romanian Communist Party members and anti-German resistance fighters. Examples include Francisc Panet and Filimon Sârbu. According to writer Marius Mircu, thirty anti-fascists were executed during the war, of whom all but three were Jews. ==Communist Romania==

Two statutes dealing with war crimes were passed in 1945; the following year, Antonescu and three of his followers were executed by firing squad. According to the military archives, between 1949 and 1963, largely corresponding with the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, 260 people were executed in Romania, Large-scale embezzlement causing serious damage to the national economy was added to the list of crimes eligible for execution by decree 202/1953 while in 1957, the death penalty for aggravated murder was introduced into the Penal Code for the first time under communism. Most death penalty convictions were handed down for murder, but some were for large-scale theft of state property. For instance, in 1983–1984, 19 individuals were sentenced to death for theft from public property (mainly large quantities of meat) all of them benefiting from a reprieve. During Ceauşescu's entire time in power (1965–89), 104 people were executed by firing squad at Jilava and Rahova prisons, with commutations reinforcing his image as a stern but kind father to the nation. The death of Ion Pistol, shot for aggravated homicide in May 1987, marked the country's last regular execution. Romania's last executions were those of Ceaușescu himself and his wife Elena; following the overthrow of the regime in the Romanian Revolution, they were subjected to a show trial and then shot by a firing squad on 25 December 1989. Elena Ceaușescu was the only woman executed in modern Romania. ==Romania since 1989==

On 7 January 1990, shortly after the Ceauşescus were summarily shot, the leaders of the National Salvation Front abolished the death penalty by decree; some Romanians saw this as a way for former Communists to escape punishment and demanded reinstatement of the death penalty in a series of protests in January 1990. In response, the leadership scheduled a referendum on the question for 28 January, but cancelled the vote ten days before it was to take place. On 27 February 1991, Romania ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant (Law nr. 7/1991). The constitution, ratified that December, explicitly prohibited the death penalty; Ahead of the 2000 presidential election, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who finished in second place, made reintroduction of capital punishment a major plank of his campaign. File:Impaled.gif|Impalements taking place around Prince Vlad File:Alba Carolina Fortress 2011 - Scaffold including Breaking Wheel.jpg|Site where Horea and Cloşca were executed File:Antonescu execution.jpg|Ion Antonescu being shot by firing squad ==See also==