While in the West, many are clamoring for harsher punishments for all kinds of crimes, China is moving in the opposite direction. At a plenary meeting of the National People's Congress, president of the Supreme People's Court, Xiao Yang and procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Jia Chunwang said one should not be too strict on all kinds of crimes and judges should hand down shorter sentences within the bounds of the law. In the past, many judges were quick to hand down the longest sentence possible to show that they were fighting crime. No longer. Punishment should fit the criminal, China's two top judicial officials said.
China will also limit the death penalty to “an extremely small number of cases” to be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. The number of executions carried out every year remains however a state secret. Guesstimates are wildly divergent, between 1,200 and over 10,000. But the direction is clear: less death sentences.
Last year, nine provincial- and ministerial level officials were convicted of embezzlement, bribery or dereliction of duty. That doesn't include the highest profile case of the former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu, who is still referred to as “comrade”, signaling he is still a member of the party and his case has not been transferred to the procuratorate. Criminals don't belong in the communist party, so they are first expelled before criminal charges are filed.
No comments:
Post a Comment