Amnesty International Australia's Anti-Death Penalty Coordinator, Tim Goodwin, sees China's death penalty reforms as welcome, but nowhere near enough.

In recent years there has been growing concern in China, and around the world, about the country's massive and unfair use of the death penalty. Within China there has been unprecedented, and at times angry, public debate about serious failings in the country's criminal justice system.

This rare public criticism followed reports of people being sentenced to death after they had been tortured by police. In a number of shocking cases, prisoners were executed for murder, only to have their ‘victims' later appear alive.

Amnesty International has provided Chinese academics, lawyers and non-government organisations with information about the failures of justice at every step of the death penalty system. The organisation's 2004 campaign on the death penalty in China encouraged the government to ensure the Supreme People's Court reviews all death sentences.

In October 2006, worldwide campaigning activities for the fourth World Day Against the Death Penalty, including events across Australia, highlighted the injustice of China's death penalty system.

In the same month the Chinese Government responded to the level of domestic and international concern by reforming the appeals process in death penalty cases. From 1 January 2007, all death sentences handed down by provincial courts must be reviewed and ratified by the Supreme People's Court.

According to government reports, a prisoner will still appeal their conviction at the provincial level, but their death sentence must be referred to the Supreme People's Court for confirmation.

In the past, both death sentences and appeals were handled by provincial courts, which have been criticised for corruption, poorly trained judges and political interference in verdicts.

Worrying remark

The Supreme People's Court has been preparing for the new workload for at least a year, establishing new tribunals, and recruiting and training judges from across the country.

In June 2006, the court's Vice-President Xiong Xuanguo said those with“strong political qualifi cations and a sense of responsibility" would be chosen as judges to hear death penalty reviews, a worrying remark in a justice system characterised by a high level of political interference.

China's state-controlled media described the changes as “the most important reform" to the death penalty in China in more than 20 years, and “a major step to safeguard human rights".

The reforms are certainly a welcome step and may help improve the quality of trials for those facing the death penalty and even reduce the number of people executed—which Chinese experts estimate is between 8,000 and 10,000 a year.

However, even with these improvements, people facing possible death sentences are still unlikely to receive a fair trial. Trials in China are generally marked by serious fl aws and fall far short of international human rights standards.

Many people arrested are denied prompt access to lawyers, and there is no presumption of innocence in court. There is widespread political interference and courts continue to accept evidence obtained under torture.

The latest reforms will not be enough to address these issues. Amnesty International is concerned that the changes may even help entrench the death penalty in the country, if they are not accompanied by other measures to improve the transparency of the death penalty and reduce the number of crimes to which it applies.

Statistics on the use of the death penalty are classifi ed a state secret, and it continues to apply to about 68 crimes in China, including non-violent offences such as tax fraud and accepting bribes.

In September, Amnesty International released a report card on China's progress on human rights reform in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics. The report acknowledged China's progress in death penalty reforms but found its overall record remained poor and fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the Olympic movement, which is based on the "preservation of human dignity".

Our message remains simple. The death penalty can never be carried out in a way that safeguards the fundamental rights to life and dignity. And there is only one way to ensure that innocent people are not executed: abolish the death altogether.

This article was first published in the December 2006/January 2007 issue of the Human Rights Defender, AIA's bi-monthly publication.