China's Supreme People's Court is considering retracting the right of local courts to impose the death penalty, a move likely to reduce executions.
The court is studying an amendment to the law that allows provincial courts to approve executions, which would reserve that right for the Supreme People's Court, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday. The move would reverse a decision made in 1983 to grant lower courts that power because of an increase in the number of crimes.
The death penalty is applied for as many as 60 different crimes in China, including murder, rape, drug trafficking and embezzlement. China does not reveal the number of people executed each year, but Amnesty International suggests it is at least 10,000.
Professor Song Yinghui of the China University of Political Sciences and Law in Beijing said there was no clear standard for handing down a death penalty under current laws. He said local courts were less strict than the Supreme People's Court in assessing death penalty cases.
Some lawyers believe the change could reduce the number of executions by as many as one third.
© Copyright 2004 by United Press International
