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China moves to reduce number of crimes punishable by death

Human rights groups welcome proposals but say that 55 common offences remain unaffected

Originally published by Guardian.co.uk, 23 Aug 2010

By Jonathan Watts in Beijing

 If proposals are accepted, the crime of smuggling endangered animals such as the leatherback turtle (above) is one of those that will no longer be subject to the death penalty. Photograph: Natural England/PAChina is moving to soften its image as the world’s biggest executioner by removing the death penalty for tax dodging, fiddling receipts and smuggling endangered animals.

The maximum sentence for these and 10 other crimes that can currently be punished by lethal injection could be reduced to life imprisonment under a draft revision of the criminal code, which still has to be officially approved, the state media reported today.

The proposed downscaling of capital offences was hailed by Chinese legal experts as a step forward in the liberalisation of the justice system, but international human rights groups said the steps did not go far enough because the death penalty remains in place for 55 more common crimes and the justice system is shrouded in secrecy.

China does not make public the number of executions carried out each year, but the Dui Hua Foundation, a US-based human rights group, estimates about 5,000 convicts are put to death each year, down from about 10,000 a decade ago.

The reduction is largely due to a decision in 2007 to put all death penalty cases up for review by the supreme court, rather than have summary sentencing at a local level. Even with this reform, China is thought to execute more prisoners than the rest of the world put together.

Foreign government and civil rights organisations have repeatedly called on China to move towards abolition, particularly after miscarriages of justice. Concerns also grew after the execution of Akmal Sheikh, the convicted British heroin smuggler who was given a lethal injection last December. He was the first European in 50 years to get the death penalty in China despite his family’s claims that he was suffering from mental illness.

That case would probably not have been affected by the revision submitted to the standing committee of the National People’s Congress this month, which mainly focused on white collar crime.

According to the Xinhua news agency, it proposes cutting the death penalty for 13 “economy-related, non-violent offences” and for people aged 75 and over. It also criminalises the trade in human organs, many of which come from victims of the death penalty.

Overseas human rights groups say it is difficult to assess whether the revision marks a change of style or substance because the number of death penalties remains a state secret.

“We welcome any genuine attempt to reduce the death penalty in China, but it is unclear whether this is legislative housekeeping that will have little effect on the overall number of executions,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s deputy programme director for Asia. “China could certainly make more meaningful reductions. We encourage them to make more effort to catch up with the global trend, which is to abolish the death penalty.”

There are also fears that an increase in the maximum life sentence from 20 to 25 years – another proposed revision to the criminal code – could result in more miscarriages of justice if judges use this option when there is insufficient evidence for the death penalty.

Local lawyers said, however, that the draft was an important step forward. “This is a significant change that shows the progress of the Chinese legal system and public awareness about the law,” said Han Jiayi, a senior member of the All-China Lawyers’ Association. “In my own practice I have observed a steady decrease in the number of death penalty cases. Even if these 13 crimes were not removed from the list, the reality is that they are rarely punished with the maximum penalty nowadays.”

He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University, said international opinion and appeals from academics in China had encouraged the authorities to scale back the list of crimes. “But an even more important fact is that the death penalty has not proved very effective in reducing economic crime.”

Not all the sentencing is obsolete, however. Last year a man was given the death penalty for smuggling 82 saker falcons and other endangered species. This would no long warrant execution if the draft revision is approved by the National People’s Congress.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/china-death-penalty-crime-executions/print