Chinese lawmakers reviewed a bilateral treaty on extradition with Mexico in Beijing Wednesday and are expected to ratify it in next four days.

The pact was submitted by the State Council, China's cabinet, to the seventh session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, for deliberation.

The treaty was signed here by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Patricia Espinosa Cantellano on July 11, 2008, during the visit of Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.

The pact is in accordance with Chinese legal principles, judicial practices, interests and needs, according to a report submitted by the State Council to the NPC Standing Committee.

The agreement will promote judicial cooperation and further China's cooperative relationship with Mexico, it said.

The 22-item treaty covers crimes, refusal excuses, contact approach and dispute resolution involved in extradition.

The pact settled two major problems that may cause disputes in extradition, the report said.

Mexico has banned the death penalty and usually would not deliver a suspect to another country, such as China, where he or she might be sentenced to death.

Under the pact, the two sides agreed to settle solutions based on individual cases, instead of writing this in the pact as one of the refusal excuses.

In addition, under domestic laws, China will not deliver a citizen of Chinese nationality to another country. Mexican law allows its own citizens to be extradited.

In the pact, the two sides agreed that both of them have the right to refuse extradition of their own citizens. But the suspects would be taken to court in their own country under the request of the other country. The latter should provide related documents and evidence.

China also ratified a pact on criminal judiciary assistance with Mexico in June 2006.

China is Mexico's second largest trade partner while Mexico is China's second largest trade partner in Latin America.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2009)