On The Restriction And Abolition Of Death Penalty From The Change Of Death Penalty Policy In China

Death penalty is the most important and controversial issue in Criminal Law It has been criticized for its cruelty since200years ago, while some countries choose death penalty to fight against serious criminal for its powerful deterrent effect· With the development of human civilization and human rights, many countries started to make laws to restrict and abolish the death penalty since the20th century·Meanwhile in China, the death penalty still exists due to its culture and other factors·The number of death sentences in China has always been the largest in the world· Therefore, Chinese policy is in great contrast with the world tendency·The reason why China does not restrict or abolish death penalty is closely related to Chinese people’s attitude toward it· According to the public opinion polls in1995and2007,96%and58%of the Chinese people believe in capital punishment·On the contrary, most academia is in favor of the restriction of death penalty·The difference only lies in when and how fast the change should be made· Some believe in immediate abolition, some approve of abolition step by step and others support the reduction of death penalty· The legislator firmly believes in retaining death penalty and the policy executor thinks that retaining and strictly controlling capital punishment is the basic death penalty policy in China·Facts show that this policy is accurate and we should continue to implement it·However, the policy changed with times·The policy seemed ill-formed during the revolution period after the founding of China·The policy in the Criminal Law enacted in1979obviously showed the consideration in restricting capital punishment-The economic development since1980has led to a certain degree of social instability·Therefore, more death sentences had been executed·Entering the21st century, China has embarked on a gradual process of restricting death penalty·In2011, China announced to drop the death penalty for13crimes, with the death penalty crimes down to55·Actually there exist many problems in the course of retaining death sentence as a criminal punishment·The dissertation analyzes three of the main problems·They are the conceptual problem led by the unrealistic belief in the deterrent of death penalty, the procedural problem led by failing to follow the legal procedure of death penalty and the environmental problem led by too much impact on the death sentence of extrajudicial factors· Through the elaboration and analysis, the author tries to find solutions by getting rid of misbelieve, consolidating the standard and procedure of capital punishment and completing supporting policies related to death penalty·Considering the condition of China, it is impossible to abolish death penalty over a short period of time·However, those policy makers also admit the necessity of the abolition of death penalty in the future·At the end of this dissertation,the author brings forward the conditions of abolishing the death penalty and poses ways to restrict and abolish death penalty from legislation,judiciary and the reform of the penalty structure according to the experience gained from the changes of death penalty policies·...