Research Of Chinese Death Penalty Legislation Reform Direction

Life right is the most basic. Out of respect for the life right, death penalty has been the hot and focus spot referred to theory of modern criminal law and practical study. For a long time, a lot of scholars have written books to expound doctrines on the value of death penalty, the application of death of death penalty, the reformation of death penalty, etc, and even the solo debate on the existence or abolishment of death penalty has been lasting for about two centuries. However, the death penalty is still an universal and ever new subject, and among all of the subjects, the existence or abolishment of death penalty is always an inevitable but primary problem should be solved. This problem, especially under the current Chinese circumstances, has more practical meaning to be discussed. Since the existence or abolishment of death penalty is concerned with Chinese condition, the answers to it should be found through Chinese history. As it is now a modern issue, the empirical analysis shall be based on the modern situation. Currently, the idea of retribution is deeply inveterate among the publics, and the Country is still holding its political method to restrain the serious crimes by death penalty. In this case, we have to accept the truth that the death penalty is unable to be completely abolished in a short term. However, the whole criminal system is over judged because there are too many charges on capital punishment stipulated in Chinese legislation. Now, compared to judicial control, limiting the quantity of the charges of capital punishment through legislation is the way to solve the problem from the beginning. By legislation, some death penalty rules which are rarely applied in practice or totally unreasonably existed could be abolished step by step, and this is the correct trend of death reformation. This article, based on the reformation described in The Criminal Amendment Chapter8, is focusing on the standards and options that the Chinese lawgivers shall follow when they make the restrictions on death penalty. The article is totaled about33,000Chinese words and separated to4parts.In the first part, the content and background of the various reformations on death penalty are introduced and analyzed. The article confirms that the most effective and direct method to orientate Chinese death reformation is to understand the attitude of the lawgivers.In the second part, the theory of existence or abolishment of death penalty under present Chinese situation is analyzed, the basic value of death penalty is explored when discussing its existence or abolishment and three questions, is the death penalty justice, necessary and humane, are given to answers. However, the writer does not only focus on the dispute of existence or abolishment, but further confirms the method how to reform the current Chinese death penalty based on The Criminal Amendment Chapter8. Under this basis, this part adjusted and analyzed national conditions, public opinions, social harms, etc which related to the various death reformation..In the third part, the evaluation to the trend of reformation described in The Criminal Amendment Chapter8is made. the abolishment of death penalty on specific crime by breaking socialist market order, breaking social management order and stealing. Furthermore, this part analyzes the characteristics of specific crime constitution, the background and reason to sentence of death and how the lawgivers make the decision of abolishing death penalty in terms of Country condition, public opinion and social endangerment.In the forth part, by analyzing the Country condition, publish opinion and social endangerment, the writer, based on the standard of the lawgivers, regards that although great progresses have been made by The Criminal Amendment Chapter8, there are still some defects in the reformation of Chinese criminal law in terms of the death penalty on drug crime, offenses of counterfeiting currency, crime of graft and bribery which is widely discussed at present, and some conflicted death penalty, caused by diverse standards or insufficient understanding, like crimes of endangering national security, public security and personal safety. Some crimes shall be sentenced to death penalty while it doesn’t or some crimes should not be sentenced to death while it does.