Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet on Wednesday with Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland.
Jagland started his first visit to Russia on his current post on Monday. The two men will discuss the reform of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the abolishment of death penalty in Russia.
Russia is the only member of the Council of Europe that has not ratified the 14th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights without which the reform of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg cannot start.
A few years ago the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, said a number of the protocol's provisions are out of line with Russian laws, but recently Medvedev said some contentious issues have been agreed upon with European partners and discussions of the document could resume.
On November 19, Russia's Constitutional Court extended a moratorium on capital punishment, which was due to expire on January 1. The court said that the ban, introduced in 1999, had begun an "irreversible process" toward the abolition of the death penalty in the country.
But an overwhelming majority of Russians (79%) consider the death penalty an acceptable punishment for crimes such as child sex abuse, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center said recently.
Russia imposed the moratorium after it joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and signed the European Convention on Human Rights, but it has not ratified the document yet.
MOSCOW, December 23 (RIA Novosti)
