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.