Beijing - China is using the death penalty more fairly under
a strict review system, the country's top judge said Monday in a
report that gave no statistics for death sentences or executions.
The Supreme People's Court had ensured that capital punishment was
used 'strictly, cautiously and fairly' since it introduced a system
to review and ratify all death sentences on January 1 last year, said
Xiao Yang, the head of the court.
'The transition work has been smooth and orderly,' Xiao told the
ongoing National People's Congress, the annual parliament of China's
ruling Communist Party.
A total of 760,000 people were sentenced to between five years and
life in prison or to death from 2003 to 2007, he said in his report.
The numbers of death sentences and executions remain state secrets
in China, but Amnesty International has used state media reports to
record about 1,000 executions annually in recent years, more than the
rest of the world put together.
Many analysts said they believe the actual number of executions
remains far higher.
Law professor Liu Renwen said in 2006 that an estimate of about
8,000 executions annually was 'realistic.' Liu said China had
probably executed more than 10,000 people annually before 1997, when
it abolished capital punishment for theft.
Xiao on Monday said the Supreme People's Court was working to
limit the use of capital punishment to criminals convicted of
'extremely serious, atrocious crimes that lead to grave social
consequences.'
State media reports have said serious economic crimes can still
fit into that category.
In an interview last week with the China Law Net website, another
top judge said the Supreme People's Court had rejected 15 per cent of
death sentences passed by lower courts since January 2007.
The main reasons for rejecting death sentences included 'unclear
facts,' lack of evidence and unlawful procedures, Huang Ermei, head
of the court's criminal law chamber, told the website.
Huang also gave no statistics to support her claim, but she said
last year was the first in which the number of death sentences was
exceeded by the number of suspended death sentences, which are
normally commuted to life in prison after two years.
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