On Restricting The Use Of Death Penalty In China

Death penalty is the most severe penalty to deprive the criminals of their lives. Since Cesare Beccaria put forward the proposal of abolishing death penalty, there has been the debate on whether or not to abolish death penalty. It has been the international tendency to abolish death penalty. But in China, the scholars appeal to the judiciary to abolish death penalty while they get little reactions from it and the people in our country also strongly oppose abolishing death penalty. In the writer's opinion, it is too early to mention abolishing death penalty nowadays in our country. What we should be more concerned about is how to strictly restrict the use of death penalty on system and operation and trying to decrease its adjudgement and execution. Thus could we make it possible to abolish death penalty in our country. Firstly, the policy of keeping death penalty, less killing and cautious killing should be faithfully carried out in the criminal legislation and judicature in our country. We should make abolishing death penalty the final point of the death penalty policy. Secondly, we should perfect the death penalty legislation and make it possible to reduce the use of death penalty systematically. It can be operated from four aspects: (1) cutting the imputation of death penalty; (2) perfecting the penalty system, decreasing the practical difference of judicial degree among death penalty, stay of execution, and life imprisonment and enlarging the selective space of judging penalty on the severe penal crime; (3) further restricting the object of death penalty and regulating the upper limit of its object; (4) perfecting the death penalty defense system to make the person who may be possibly sentenced to death get effective defense. Thirdly, judicature plays the absolutely important role in strictly controlling death penalty. (1) We should keep it in mind to strictly restricting and finally abolishing death penalty, accurately grasp the death penalty standard in the judicial practice and realize cautious killing indeed. (2) We should eliminate the influence from popular indignation, press media and governmental departments to make judicature independentand lead people correctly treat death penalty through the judicial treatment of some cases. (3) We should adapt the more humane death penalty execution to diminish people's revengeful desire. (4) We must standardize the use of the death penalty criminal's body. Finally, the Supreme Court draws back the checking right of death penalty to procedurally guarantee the proper use of death penalty.