Genrikh Padva, Architect of Russia’s Death Penalty Moratorium, Passes Away

Genrikh Padva, an honored lawyer of Russia and one of the most prominent figures in the country's legal profession, has died at the age of 94. He had a stroke, his wife said on February 9. Padva was born in Moscow in 1931 and began his legal career with the Kalinin Regional Bar Association. Over the following decades, he became one of the most respected defense attorneys in the Soviet Union and later in modern Russia. Architect of the Death Penalty Moratorium Padva played a decisive role in the introduction of Russia's moratorium on the death penalty. Acting as a legal representative in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, he defended one of the applicants whose complaint led the court to rule that capital punishment was incompatible with the Constitution.