On The Procedure For Judicial Review Of Death Sentences

Procedure for judicial review of death sentences, as a specialprocedure independent from the procedure of the secondinstance being the final instance, is unique in the world judicialsystem, and is the last procedural protective screen whileChina adopts death sentences cautiously. New China's firstCriminal Procedural Law (1997), in special chapter, enactscomparatively complete procedure for judicial review of deathsentences. However, in judicial practice, the competence forexamination and approval of the cases for immediate executionof death sentence has been exercised by the lower court for along time, which reduces severely the procedural functions ofjudicial review of death sentences, as an independent judicialprocedure, to limit the adoption of death sentences, and coversits independent value in criminal procedure. At the same time,as the legislation on this procedural system is too simple, andwithout any contents, ways and time limit of judicial review,especially without any right of defense of the accused duringthe proceedings for revision, which leads to the proceduresimilar to the administrative examination and approval systemand without any lawsuit color, so as to interfere with thepursuit of the procedure to the value of justice during thededication of the cases for death sentences.At present, much systematic reform has being discussed, andthe nature and value of the procedure has been taken intoconsideration again. In my opinion, the proper resolving of theconcrete technical problems of the procedural system should bebased on the clarification of basic theory and building of thereasonable system, therefore, during the reforming of thesystem of procedure for judicial review of death sentences,with building UP concept of supreme right of life as its essence,with seeking the balance of justice and efficiency as its ways,we should reform the judging ways of judicial review of deathsentences, and improve it to an independent, real litigiousjudging procedure.