Three review courts are to be established with the Supreme
People's Court to deal with capital punishment sentences, Vice
President Wan Exiang of the Supreme People's Court (the Supreme
Court) said on Sunday in Beijing at a public lecture on judicial
reform at the Beijing
Institute of Technology.
The move is to refine the death penalty review process and make
it independent of any other administrative organ, Wan said.
Amidst a rise in violent crimes in the 1980s, the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC),
the country's top legislature, revised the law to allow the Supreme
Court to transfer the review of death sentences for certain violent
offences, such as homicide and arson, to provincial higher
courts.
The establishment of the three review courts, in addition to the
existing two in the Supreme Court, is a first step to reform. The
courts will take over the reviewing rights of the death penalty in
practice and make it independent of government organs and eliminate
any interference, Wan said.
The Supreme Court will implement a series of reforms focused on
instituting judicial "independence, openness, procedures and final
judgments," Wan said.
To accelerate the reform of the justice system, the rule of
judicial independence is very important, Wan said.
"Many countries have abolished capital punishment, and China is
under pressure to do so as well." Wan said.
Wan said the abolition of the death penalty is not an easy issue
because of the entrenched belief in "a life for a life".
It is hoped that the additional review courts will help to unify
execution procedures among the various provinces, Wan said.
Previous reform suggestions by experts about returning the
review of death sentences to the Supreme Court included
establishing new court branches, setting up circuit courts, and
increasing the number of Supreme Court personnel.
"The third suggestion is the most practical and cost-efficient,"
said Professor Chen Weidong, director of the Research Center on Law
System and Justice Reform, affiliated to Renmin University of
China.
At least 300 judges will be appointed to the three review
courts, according to a report by the China Youth Daily on
September 27.
"If things go smoothly, the three review courts will take over
death penalty review rights from next year. This should happen
after judicial reform implementation details are approved by the
national judicial reform group," He Jiahong, a professor with
Renmin University, said.
The national judicial reform group was formed in 2003. It is
headed by Luo Gan,
a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau and secretary
of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Communist
Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
A three-member collegiate bench will then be set up to review
death penalty cases submitted by provincial courts, according to a
judge from the Supreme Court, who asked not to be named.?
The judge said that factors to be taken into consideration
during the review process will include the age of the accused; if
the accused is a woman, whether or not she is pregnant; whether the
law was applied correctly; examining evidence and its sufficiency;
consequences of the crime; and whether there is scope for
leniency.
When the Criminal Law was amended in 1997, 40, mostly non-violent,
offences were added to the list of offences punishable by death.
There are currently a total of 68 offences that carry the death
penalty.
In 2004, a total of 767,951 sentences were handed down by
China's courts at all levels, up 2.8 percent from the previous
year. About 19 percent of those sentences were imprisonment for
five years or more, life imprisonment and the death penalty
collectively.
(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong, September 28, 2005)