CHINA, LIMITS INTRODUCED TO THE DEATH PENALTY
The Chinese government has announced plans to review over 2014 the Penal Code, to reduce the number of crimes subject to death penalty. The last such operation was carried out in 2011, when the legislators removed 13 crimes from the list of those punishable by the death penalty.
Zang Tiewei, director of the Criminal Department of the Legislative Affairs Commission, told a recent press conference that the government has recommended that judicial courts apply the death penalty with great caution. He therefore added that this punishment should in future be reserved only for extremely serious crimes. Deng Hui, deputy of the National People's Congress and professor at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, in turn suggested that it would be appropriate to abolish the death penalty for economic crimes. “These kinds of crimes,” he said, “are different from violent ones. The former endanger people's lives, while the latter are mostly violations against property, therefore they should have different punishments”. He also added that for bank or stock exchange fraud, or for crimes that disturb the performance of the markets, the death penalty is too heavy and, essentially, unnecessary. Speaking on the matter, Wu Zongxian, professor of criminal law at Beijing Normal University, observed that, without resorting to the death penalty, "it is already enough for a fraudster to definitively deprive him of his professional qualification to enter the business world". . In addition - Professor Wu continues - the maintenance of the death sentence for crimes of an economic nature harms China's image, since in the vast majority of developed countries the death penalty for similar crimes has already been repealed some time ago. However, all this certainly does not mean that China is close to abandoning the death penalty. Another criminologist, Professor Han Yusheng of Renmin University of China said it clearly, stating that “in our country it is not feasible to think of eliminating the death penalty; the most that can realistically be done is to reduce its field of application”.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014npcandcppcc/201403/10/content_17334168.htm
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