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Death penalty to undergo stricter review
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-03-09 10:56
China will further refine the death penalty review process this year, Chief
Justice Xiao Yang told the on-going annual session of the National People's
Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, in Beijing Wednesday.
Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, said in his annual work
report that his court will promote reform in the justice system to safeguard
justice in jurisdiction.
The president did not elaborate on the details of reforms, but said earlier
when answering questions of the Human Rights magazine last month that China
strictly controls the application for death sentence and strictly follows the
procedures of passing death sentence.
China has implemented the policy of "combining punishment with leniency" and
oppose advocacy of "heavy penalty" and "severe punishments", he told the
magazine.
"To those convicted guilty of serious crimes, we approved the capital
punishment according to law," he told the parliament in his report. "To those
convicted of felony crimes but there were circumstances for leniency, we would
change the capital punishmentto death penalty on probation or life imprisonment
according to law."
According to Xiao, China's courts at all levels sentenced a total of 767,951
convicted criminals last year, up 2.8 percent from a year ago. Among the
convicted criminals, 19.04 percent were sentenced to more than five years
imprisonment, life imprisonment and death penalty.
Some Chinese scholars have proposed abolishing capital punishment, but many
others did not agree. The issue has caused a heat debate.
Responding to the call to abolish all death penalty, the China Youth Daily
said in a recent report that China should reform its criminal punishment system
and set longer years behind bars than the maximum of 20 years imprisonment
before death penalty is gradually reduced.
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