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Death penalty to undergo stricter review
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-03-09 10:56
皇冠体育app 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), 皇冠体育app'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 皇冠体育app strictly controls the application for death sentence and strictly follows the procedures of passing death sentence.
皇冠体育app 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, 皇冠体育app'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 皇冠体育app Youth Daily said in a recent report that 皇冠体育app 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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