Capital punishment in Romania

Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1990, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.

The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad III 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. Leaders of the Wallachian Revolution of 1848 called for abolition in the Islaz Proclamation and soon issued a decree to the effect. Their Moldavian counterparts were less focused on the issue, with only Mihail Kogălniceanu bringing up abolition in his proposed constitution. After the revolutions were crushed, the ruling princes maintained the death penalty: it is mentioned in the Penal Codes both of Wallachia's Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei and of Moldavia's Grigore Alexandru Ghica.

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