On The Abolition Of Death Penalty In China

Death penalty, as a kind of penalty to deprive the criminal’s life completely, hadalready existed from the emergence of penalty. In the early days of human history,people didn’t question the legitimacy and rationality of its existence. With thepublication of Beccaria’s <An Essay On Crimes and Punishments>, which take thelead in questioning the existence or abolishment of the death penalty from the humannature and rationality, people re-considerate the death penalty and therefore form aheated discussion on the existence or abolishment of the death penalty, which makes thedeath penalty a focus in legislation and judicial practice. After the discussion forseveral centuries, humanism and protection of human rights are rooted in the hearts ofthe people and the abolishment of death penalty is also accepted by more and morecountries and its people, meanwhile the restriction and abolishment of death penaltyis also confirmed by more and more international legal documents, the gradualabolishment of death penalty has become a international trend too.Based on the reality of our country, our policy of death penalty is that” stick tokill less and cautious, prevent from killing someone by a mistake, retain the deathpenalty but limit its application strictly”.Today, more and more countries arechoosing to follow the international trend of abolishing death penalty, our countrystill retain the death penalty. First, the level of economic development in our countryis not high, it is not feasible to abolish the death penalty; Second, the democracy ofpolitics in our country is still in a low level and the political elite praise the harshpunishment highly; Third, the number of the educated people in our country isrelative small, and the ideal of protection of human rights and humanity is not rooteddeeply in the hearts of the people. But we should also see that with the deepening ofthe reform and opening up and the faster rate of political, economic and culturedevelopment in our country, and if maintain the good momentum of growth, theeconomic, political and democratic feasibility of abolishing death penalty is bound toform, in the foreseeable future. Since the future fate of the death penalty is that it isbound to be abolished, the government and the people need to make constant efforts to limit the application of the death penalty from now, and in the end, take theabolishment of the death penalty for granted. This need the scholars to spare noefforts to publicize and popularize the idea of the protection of human rights andhumanism; it also need the government to create conditions actively and providematerial conditions and economic support; from the restriction of death penalty inlegislation and judicial practice to the ultimate abolishment of the death penalty ismore needed.This article is divided into four parts to discuss the basis and specific path ofabolish the death penalty.The first part: The concept of the death penalty and its historical development.The understanding of the nature of the death penalty and its different characteristicsin different historical stage is helpful for us to understand and grasp the death penaltysystem more comprehensivelyThe second part: The debate on the existence or abolishment of the death penaltyin the history. Understanding the basic arguments on both sides will provide thetheoretical support on the deepening of the thesis.The third part: Thinking of the death penalty in our country. We can justify theabolishment of the death penalty in china by analyzing the reasons for the existenceof the death penalty in our country, understanding the policy of the death penalty andrelating to the basic national conditions in china,The fourth part: Measures to gradually abolish the death penalty in china. Theabolishment of the death penalty can not be done overnight,but to experience agradual process, in which we can plan out a feasible framework to limit the deathpenalty and finally end it up, according to the law and the judicial practice of deathpenalty in our country.