China Changes Death Penalty Law

Police Van
Originally uploaded by Rob Stevens.

China’s legislature on Tuesday barred all but the nation’s highest court from approving death sentences, a move that state media called the country’s biggest change to capital punishment in more than 20 years.

China is believed to account for most of the world’s court-ordered executions, putting to death hundreds of people a year for crimes ranging from murder to such nonviolent offenses as tax evasion. Human rights groups have been protesting what they call miscarriages of justice and the extensive, arbitrary use of capital punishment.

The change, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2007, “is believed to be the most important reform of capital punishment in China in more than two decades,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.