Sentencing Standardization Research

Sentencing is an activity to determine the penalty against criminals by the court at its discretion. A prevailing problem in the past was that similar cases may lead to significantly different adjudication result and the public has also criticized the sentencing process as non-open and non-transparent. The sentencing standardization reform that is intended to standardize sentencing activity from substantive and procedural prospective will standardize sentencing activity and court's discretion, improve openness and transparency of sentencing activity so as to achieve sentencing balance, safeguard judicial impartiality and realize the rule of criminal law.Sentencing is closely related to the protection of human rights in a country, is necessarily required by the realization of sentencing impartiality and social equality and justice, and is a reflection of the rule of criminal law. The sentencing standardization reform has achieved satisfactory legal and social effects and highlighted attribute of justice. Given that the reform is a huge task and started rather late in China, there are some problems and difficulties in conducting the reform. First, in terms of legislation, the sentencing reform is not following the international trend of penalty mitigation and non-imprisonment and the provisions in support of sentencing standardization do not have enough legal effect; second, the sentencing rules have limited content and application scope and focus less on the impartiality of individual cases and personalized penalty while emphasizing standardized sentencing; third, in terms of procedure, since sentencing suggestion and defense have not been given its due roles and the sentencing proceeding between the prosecutor and the defender has been less adversary, the judgment has sometimes been less persuasive or missed the point and community correction mechanism of participation is not enough. This article is intended to revise, supplement and improve the sentencing theory applicable to China's existing criminal law regime, and the prevailing problems and weakness of the current sentencing standardization reform, so as to promote the healthy and orderly development of the reform.