On The System Of Restrictions On Commutations Of Criminals Sentenced To Death With A Suspension Of Execution

The System of Restrictions on Commutations of Criminals Sentenced to Death with a Suspension of Execution is a system in which the people’s court has the power to impose restrictions on the prescribed minimum of imprisonment terms of recidivists sentenced to death reprieves in accordance with the Criminal Law, or criminals sentenced to death with a suspension of execution according to the law for committing the seven serious violent crimes, as well as organized violent crimes, according to their criminal backgrounds, social harmfulness, personal fatalness, etc.This system is not a kind of criminal penalty on its own, but a transitional criminal implementation system between death with a suspension of execution and immediate death penalty. Its originate not only consummated the criminal penalty implementation system of our country, contributed to the implement of the principle of compatibility of crime, responsibility and penalty, but also sufficiently motivated the function of the Criminal Law, effectively contained the judicial corruption in regulatory domains, meanwhile made for China’s perfection of human rights guarantee system as well as the deepening in reforming the system of death penalty.The suitable objects of the System of Restrictions on Commutations of Criminals Sentenced to Death with a Suspension of Execution are criminals sentenced to death with a suspension of execution according to the Criminal Law. To be specific, it should be applied to recidivists sentenced to death with a suspension of execution, and criminals sentenced to death with a suspension of execution for committing the seven serious violent crimes, such as intentional homicide, rape and robbery, as well as organized violent crimes. Whether the people’s court would impose restrictions on the criminals’ prescribed minimum of imprisonment terms depend on their circumstances of crime. If a criminal’s punishment was commuted to life imprisonment upon the expiration of the probationary period according to the law, he shall serve no less than 25 years of actual execution term, even though he received commutations afterwards. And if his punishment was commuted to fixed-term imprisonment of 25 years, he shall serve no less than 20 years of execution term, even if he received commutations afterwards.In juridical practices, certain problems appear during the application of The System of Restrictions on Commutations of Criminals Sentenced to Death with a Suspension of Execution. For instance, discretion and different understandings on the system between judges may lead to different judgments on a same case, making this valuable achievement of legislation a mere formality. The reasons for such circumstance may be lack of definition, operability and normalization in legislation, as well as judges being short of cognition on the system of death sentence with a reprieve, having differences in trial experiences and legal accomplishments, etc.The primary task of solving the problems in the application of The System of Restrictions on Commutations of Criminals Sentenced to Death with a Suspension of Execution is widening the sphere and clarifying the standard of the system’s application in lawmaking, and strengthening procedural legislation of the system. Secondly, in the judicature layer, the regulatory mechanisms from both inside and outside should be established and perfected, the balance of measuring punishments between courts should be achieved, the advance of cognition on the system of death sentence with a reprieve in judges should be realized, proposals on restrictions on commutations from the procuratorial organs should be reinforced, and the adjudicatory personnel’s application of The System of Restrictions on Commutations of Criminals Sentenced to Death with a Suspension of Execution should be reasonably restricted.