Courts to ease up on death penalties
But top judge says Beijing is not ready to abolish executions
Chinese courts will exercise greater caution when handing down death sentences, but will continue to apply 'heavy punishments' for serious crimes, Supreme People's Court president Xiao Yang said yesterday.
'Strike Hard' - a measure that has been enforced since the early 1980s to deal with serious crimes such as murder, rape and robbery - would be a long-term policy to safeguard the country's social stability, Mr Xiao said at the Fifth National Criminal Trial Working Conference.
The Supreme Court president said that crimes endangering national security, terrorism, organised crime, as well as crimes that seriously threatened social security - such as bombings, homicide, robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking - were listed as targets for strict punishment.
Serious economic crimes would also be harshly punished according to the law, Mr Xiao told judges from the mainland's provinces and main cities.
These included embezzlement and bribery.
The country's top judge emphasised that China would retain capital punishment, although it would be 'under strict control and exercised with great caution' under the new death penalty policy.
'China hasn't yet reached the sufficient social and cultural conditions to abolish the death penalty,' Mr Xiao was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
He said capital punishment was still a necessary evil that ensured national security, the public interests and social safety.
In a significant reform described by Mr Xiao as 'an important procedural step in preventing wrongful convictions', the Supreme People's Court recently reclaimed its right to review and approve all death penalty verdicts. This comes 23 years after the powers were passed to lower courts.
The death penalty was reserved for an 'extremely small number of extremely serious criminal offenders', Mr Xiao said.
The chief justice advised the judges to use the 'death penalty with a reprieve', touting it as 'a Chinese innovation' that could both punish criminals and reduce the number of executions.
Criminals given a suspended death sentence are not executed immediately and can often see their sentence cut to a life sentence or even 10 to 15 years in jail.
Mr Xiao suggested several situations where such a punishment could be handed down, for instance in cases where the offender surrendered to authorities and assisted police in their investigations.
Other crimes where the death penalty should be cautiously applied included cases stemming from family conflicts and between neighbours, cases where the victim was to blame, and cases where defendants showed 'sincere repentance' and offered compensation for losses they caused.
'In cases where the judge has the legal leeway to decide whether to order death, he should always choose not to do so,' Mr Xiao said.
Yet he reiterated that only strict punishment would prevent crime.
