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Death penalty cases to be heard in open court
(chinadaily.com.cn/AFP)
Updated: 2006-03-12 09:27
China is to allow death penalty cases to be heard in open court beginning
this year, its top judge said, in a move that may reduce the number of
executions.
Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, spoke to the country’s
people’s congress now in session in Beijing Saturday that open trials would be
allowed and practiced in all appeal hearings.
Xiao Yang,
president of the Supreme People's Court, delivers a work report to the
National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing
Saturday March 11, 2006. Six provincial-level or ministerial-level
officials were sentenced to prison for corruption in 2005, said Xiao.
[Xinhua] |
"As of July 1, 2006, all the
second-instance trials of death sentence cases shall be heard in open court," he
said in his annual work report delivered to the top parliament, the National
People's Congress.
The country's highest court would also take steps to take back the power to
review death sentences from provincial courts that previously had the final
word, he said.
The move appears to be a response to Chinese media reports in recent years
which exposed a few questionable or even wrongful death penalty sentences,
sparking public debate, especially among academics who began lobbying for
change, analysts say.
On Saturday, a spokesman with the Supreme People’s Court, said that China,
for the moment, does not have the right conditions for abolishing capital
punishment.
Sun Huapu said that China is among the more than half of the nations in the
world that have insisted on the death penalty, which has drawn some criticism
from international human rights organizations. It is a global trend that the
controversial practice of executing heinous criminals will be gradually reduced
until it is abolished in the world, he said.
Sun noted that in China the public still believes in the principle that "a
killer should pay the victim with his life."
But the spokesman said China has exerted strict control over the death
penalty, ensuring that only a very small number of criminals committing
extremely severe crimes be executed. In China, capital punishment falls into two
categories -- a death penalty with the criminal to be executed immediately after
the sentencing, and death with a two-year probation.
Xiao indicated in his report that there would be no relaxation in China's
tough stance against crime. In 2006, China is to persist in the Strike Hard
(anti-crime) campaign, strictly punish crimes such as murder and robbery, as
well as drug trafficking.
Last year, courts sentenced 844,717 people to prison, an increase of 10
percent from 2004, Xiao said. Of 321,395 sentenced for serious crimes, 131,869
received penalties ranging from five years in jail to the death penalty, said
Xiao.
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