diff --git a/vcf/parser.py b/vcf/parser.py
index c3c3d08..e9de708 100644
--- a/vcf/parser.py
+++ b/vcf/parser.py
@@ -266,8 +266,8 @@ def __init__(self, fsock=None, filename=None, compressed=None, prepend_chr=False
         self.filename = filename
         if compressed:
             self._reader = gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=self._reader)
-            if sys.version > '3':
-                self._reader = codecs.getreader(encoding)(self._reader)
+        if sys.version > '3':
+            self._reader = codecs.getreader(encoding)(self._reader)
 
         if strict_whitespace:
             self._separator = '\t'