The Supreme People's Court issues guiding cases to further clarify the standard for applying the death penalty

The Supreme People's Court issued the guiding case No. 12, in September 2012, in which the convict Li Fei was accused of intentional homicide. He was sentenced to death by the Harbin Intermediate People's Court, a decision that was upheld by the superior Heilongjiang Higher People's Court. But the Supreme People's Court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial, as the mother of the convict helped arrest him. The Heilongjiang Higher People's Court later imposed a death sentence with two years' probation.

The Supreme People's Court uses the case as a guiding case, which sets an example for lower courts in terms of controlling death penalty.

New requirements adopted during the CPC's key meeting

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013 announced that China will gradually reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2014 further emphasized protecting human rights. After the meeting, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress reviewed a draft amendment to the Criminal Law in a bid to abolish nine more crimes that are subject to the death penalty.

Suggestions on further controlling the use of the death penalty

China is not prepared to abolish capital punishment at the current stage. Most of the countries that have the death penalty have more than 100 million people. China's fundamental policy on death penalty is "strictly controlling the use of the death penalty and preventing wrongful death sentences." Great progress have been made in restraining the use of death penalty in recent years, but there is still room for improvement. For example, there are still quite a number of crimes subject to the death penalty, economic-related crimes are still subject to death penalty, and the public still has the ingrained thought of "a life for a life."

No matter how strict the procedures of authorizing death penalty are and how meticulous the trials are, wrongful sentences are inevitable. The changed verdict on a man for rape and murder of a woman in Dec. 15, 2014, is one that was wrongly sentenced 18 years ago. Though the wrong was eventually corrected, the man's life cannot be taken back. The erroneous judgment has had an irrevocable impact on the family. Thus only when death penalty is gradually abolished can wrongful verdicts be prevented and the people's right to life be truly protected.

The death penalty has been proved to have a restrictive effect, especially in terms of preventing crimes. Reality has shown that the number of crime cases has not changed significantly in some countries after the abolition of death penalty, while in some countries, the number of murder cases even decreased after the death penalty was abolished.

During the 12th World Day against the Death Penalty in 2014, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "The death penalty has no place in the 21st century." Against this backdrop, China should enhance its educational campaign on human rights, nurture a culture of protecting human rights and put more emphasis on the value of people's lives. The restrictive use and gradual abolition of death penalty is one of the goals that China's human rights protection should strive to achieve.

The writer is deputy director of the Department of the Political Science and Law at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, and director and professor of the Human Rights Research Center at the Party School.

The article was written in Chinese and translated by Zhang Lulu.

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