On June 24, the Information Office of the State Council issued a white paper entitled "The Great Practice of the Communist Party of China in Respecting and Protecting Human Rights." On the afternoon of June 24, the Information Office of the State Council held a briefing on the CONCEPT and practice of the Communist Party of China in respecting and protecting human rights. At the briefing, Li Xiao, a first-level inspector of the Research Office of the Supreme People's Court, introduced the work done by the SPC in recent years on the application standards of the death penalty.
Li Xiao said: Retaining the death penalty, strictly controlling it, and prudently applying it is China's consistent criminal policy. The first paragraph of Article 48 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that the death penalty applies only to criminals whose crimes are extremely serious. At the same time, article 49 of the Penal Code stipulates that the death penalty shall not be applied to women who were under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the offence and who were pregnant at the time of trial. At the time of trial, the death penalty is not applicable to persons who have attained the age of 75, except where they have caused death by particularly cruel means. The 2011 Amendment to the Criminal Law (VIII) abolished 13 death penalty charges at one time, and in 2015, the Criminal Law Amendment (IX) abolished 9 more death penalty charges.
Li Xiao said that China has continuously and strictly controlled the scope of application of the death penalty from the legislative level. In terms of justice, there were four overall in these years.
The first is to further strictly control and prudently apply the death penalty. Since January 1, 2007, when the Supreme People's Court uniformly exercised its power to approve death penalty cases, the people's courts have firmly established the concept of attaching equal importance to punishing crimes and protecting human rights, paid more attention to the criminal policy of accurately grasping the combination of leniency and severity, effectively implemented strict control and prudent application of the death penalty, and set stricter requirements on the quality of case handling, more prudent in the application of the death penalty, and more fair in trial procedures. In the process of reviewing death penalty cases, the Supreme People's Court adheres to two "most" standards, that is, to use the highest standards and the strictest requirements to effectively handle the factual evidence, legal policies, and trial procedures of each case, and ensure that the death penalty is only applied to criminals whose crimes are extremely serious.
Second, in recent years, judicial interpretations and normative documents have been continuously promulgated, refining the applicable standards of laws and policies, and strictly handling procedures. For example, the Supreme People's Court, alone or in conjunction with other departments, has issued documents such as "Several Opinions on Implementing the Criminal Policy of Blending Leniency and Severity", "Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Examination and Judgment of Evidence in Handling Death Penalty Cases", and "Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in Handling Criminal Cases". This year, a judicial interpretation on the implementation of the Criminal Procedure Law was also issued, and a comprehensive revision and provision was made to the special sections of the special chapter. These documents have played a positive and important role in guiding lower courts to try death penalty cases fairly, and to further tighten and unify the legal policy standards, evidentiary adjudication rules and trial procedures applicable to the death penalty.
The third is to strengthen human rights protections in the death penalty review process, and to ensure the defendant's right to a defense and other lawful rights. In August 2019, the Supreme People's Court issued the Several Provisions on Safeguarding the Lawful Rights and Interests of Parties in death penalty review and enforcement procedures, which stipulates that defendants have the right to retain lawyers during the death penalty review stage, and have the right to meet with relatives before execution, etc., to ensure that the rights of defendants in death penalty cases are strongly guaranteed.
The fourth is to establish a criminal justice concept that meets the requirements of the new era and continuously improve the level of criminal justice. The Seventh National Criminal Trial Work Conference held in 2019 requires that the death penalty policy of "retaining the death penalty, strictly controlling and carefully applying the death penalty" should be strictly implemented to ensure that the death penalty is only applied to a small number of criminals whose crimes are extremely serious, who are extremely harmful to society, whose evidence is credible and sufficient, and who should be sentenced to death according to law. The people's courts resolutely implement the death penalty policy and ensure that all death penalty cases are handled as ironclad cases.
Red Star News reporter Wu Yang reported from Beijing
Edited by Yixi Chen
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