Of the news pertaining to the now concluded 2007 NPC/CPPCC meetings, one that caught my eye was the proposed reforms on capital punishment.
This is actually nothing new – the death penalty in China has been quietly debated for the past few years, with local media reporting since 2004 that changes to the system were needed. At that time discussion was to institute reforms that would grant the Supreme People’s Court the final say in death penalty convictions – since 1981 provincial courts were given this authority. Now, it seems, change is finally in motion.
According to the China Daily, since January 1st the ‘Supreme People’s Court was given the sole power to review and ratify all death sentences to ensure they are processed with “extreme caution” ‘. According to the SCMP all existing sentences have been suspended pending a review by the court.
For human rights activists this is indeed good news – execution figures vary between 1500 and 8000 per year depending who you ask, but the generally accepted figure is that China accounts for some 94% of the world’s annual executions. This is astonishingly high.
As part of the new directives, the court has “come up with interpretations or guidelines with regard to the use of capital punishment” – which the China Daily then lists as including murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, and other brutal crimes”.
Many would argue against the death penalty as an effective deterrent of crime – desperate people have little to lose, including their lives. I’m certainly not a proponent of it, and of the media rumours are correct, I look forward to it eventually being abolished.
