COURTS IN China have been ordered to ease back on the death penalty and only apply it in the case of extremely serious crimes.
China executes more people than all other countries combined. But the country’s highest court has instructed lower courts to be more liberal and to impose the death sentence with a two-year reprieve, which is normally commuted to life imprisonment.
The order from the supreme court, which came in its annual report and was printed in the People's Dailynewspaper, follows the implementation of rules in February cutting crimes punishable by death by 13 to 55.
The 13 felonies removed from the list include smuggling cultural relics and rare animals, falsely issuing tax invoices, teaching people how to commit a crime and tomb-robbing.
Most executions in China are carried out for violent crimes such as murder and robbery. But drug trafficking and some corruption cases also are punishable by death and most capital crimes on the books are non-violent crimes.
The exact number of those executed remains a state secret, but a couple of years ago some human rights groups put the figure at about 6,000.
In 2007, the government decided that all verdicts involving capital punishment should be reviewed and approved by the supreme people’s court, which led to a reduction in the number of executions. The supreme court overturned about 15 per cent of death sentences handed down in the first half of 2008.
China is easing back on the death penalty partly as a response to international pressure, but also because of the domestic outcry over some high-profile errors.
She Xianglin, from Hubei province, was sentenced to death in 1994 with two years’ reprieve for the murder of his wife, who had disappeared the same year. He was not executed and in 2005 his wife suddenly returned.
Nie Shubing was executed in 1995 for raping and killing a woman after he confessed under torture. In 2005 the real killer was arrested for other crimes.
"Though such cases are rare, they have a big influence," Liu Tao, a professor at Chinese People's Public Security University, told the Global Timesnewspaper.