China report­ed that the num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in 2006 was the low­est in near­ly a decade, and offi­cials project that this trend will con­tin­ue in 2007. According to a state media report, dur­ing the first five months of 2007, the num­ber of death sen­tences hand­ed out in cas­es of first instance dropped approx­i­mate­ly 10% from the same time in 2006. The decline stems from a key legal reform requir­ing that all death sen­tences be approved by the Supreme People’s Court, a change made in response to wide­spread con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions.

​“Among the death penal­ty cas­es the Supreme People’s Court reviewed from January to July, a rel­a­tive­ly large pro­por­tion was not giv­en approval. That is to say, exe­cu­tions would have been autho­rised (by provin­cial courts) if the final review pow­er had not been tak­en back [by the Supreme Court],” Jiang Xingchang, vice pres­i­dent of the top court, told Outlook Weekly magazine. 

(Reuters, September 3, 2007 and The Jurist, September 3, 2007). See International Death Penalty and Innocence. The decline in death sen­tences in China mir­rors a sim­i­lar trend in the U.S. See DPIC’s 2006 Year End Report.

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