„For the first time in 30 years, China's top legislature proposed this week to reduce the number of crimes punishable by execution. The proposal, albeit largely symbolic, has drawn renewed attention to China's controversial death-penalty policy, under which 68 crimes are punishable by death and more executions take place each year than in the rest of the world combined.
The state media has reported that 13 nonviolent economic crimes — ranging from smuggling relics and endangered animals to faking VAT receipts — have been dropped in a pending amendment to China's capital-punishment law. Convicts above the age of 75 will also be eligible for the exemption. If passed, the revised law could slash the total number of capital crimes in the country by up to 20%.
Experts caution that the measure might turn out to be a much smaller reform than it appears. »The crimes targeted in the revision are not being used very often«, says Joshua Rosenzweig, senior research manager at the Dui Hua Foundation, a nonprofit human-rights group based in San Francisco. Liu Renwen, a professor of criminal law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, echoes the point. »One of the 13 capital crimes called 'imparting criminal methods' has not been used since 1997«, Liu says. »Death penalties for stealing relics and fossils are also extremely rare.« But even if the 13 crimes in the amended law account for just 1% or 2% of China's total executions, the reduction in sheer numbers could still be significant.”