China’s
debate on the death penalty becomes increasingly open
Megha Rajagopalan | The Christian
Science Monitor | Sep 28, 2011
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/chinas-debate-death-penalty-becomes-increasingly-open?page=0,1
Megha
Rajagopalan（她取了一个中文名字李香梅）撰写了一篇关于中国近期死刑案件和死刑论证的文章，发表在昨天出版的《基督教科学箴言报》上。今天上午，文章重点讨论的死刑案主人公李昌奎被执行死刑。转发此文，也算是对于这起死刑的一个记号吧。贺卫方
Li Changkui, a southern Chinese
farmer charged with raping and murdering a teenage girl before
killing the girl’s 3-year-old brother, was tried for the third time
in a Chinese court late last month. Both the evidence and charges
against him were virtually the same as those of his previous trial,
but this time he was sentenced to death.
Months earlier, the Yunnan Provincial
High Court had given Mr. Li a lighter sentence tantamount to life
imprisonment – overturning a lower court’s death sentence. But the
high court’s leniency sparked a massive public outcry demanding
that Li be sentenced to death. “If Li Changkui doesn’t die, there
is no law in China!” a commenter in an online forum
wrote.
It was this onslaught of public
pressure that ultimately led to an unusual decision to retry
Li.
Li’s case, the latest in a series of
controversial death penalty decisions, shows that the increasingly
open debate on death penalty reform in China can be a double-edged
sword: Though the contingent of lawyers, scholars, journalists, and
judicial officials who advocate for reform has grown, so has the
ability of the general public to pressure courts to change
sentences perceived as too lenient – a development some say verges
on mob justice.
“When it comes to popular will, I’m
conflicted,” says Liu Renwen, a legal scholar at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. “On one hand, when the public holds the
courts accountable, it prevents problems like corruption, and
that’s a positive function. But on the other hand, [in this case]
it seems like popular will has too much power.”
World’s leader in
executions
China infamously executes the largest
number of people in the world per year. Amnesty International pegs
the figure in the thousands, but the true number is a state secret.
Though there are relatively few intellectuals in China who favor
completely abolishing the death penalty, judicial reform advocates
say there is growing support for reducing the number of death
penalty sentences courts hand out.
That movement reached a milestone in
February, when an amendment to China’s criminal code struck down 13
charges from the list of crimes punishable by death, including
smuggling historical relics and evading taxes. The amendment was
heralded as evidence of the government’s commitment to reducing the
number of criminals put to death.
“The Supreme People’s Court in the
past three to five years has been working hard to reduce the number
of death sentences,” says He Weifang, a legal scholar at Peking
University and longtime activist for judicial reform. “But when it
meets with cases that spur major public indignation … the Supreme
People’s Court basically can’t endure the pressure that comes from
public opinion and the Party. They can only apply the death
penalty.”
The exact relationship between public
pressure and Li’s retrial is unclear. Legal scholars say it is
unlikely that public pressure alone forced the court to change the
sentence, but most point to it as a dominant factor.
Courts under pressure
Courts are constantly under pressure
not to appear “soft on crime,” says Jon Kamm, executive director of
the San Francisco-based Duihua Foundation, which conducts research
on the death penalty in China. “If you’re constantly handing down
unpopular decisions, it will affect your chances for promotion,” he
explains.
In China, microblogs and online
forums have become a kind of megaphone for critics. After the high
court’s first ruling, the victim’s family posted messages online
decrying the decision and calling for Li to be executed.
The messages struck a chord with
netizens across China, turning a local murder case into a national
story.
Despite the wave of criticism after
the Yunnan Provincial High Court issued its first sentence, it
initially appeared that the court was willing to stand behind its
controversial decision. Tian Chengyou, the court’s deputy chief
justice, defended the court’s decision to reduce Li’s sentence at a
press briefing July 6. Tian pointed out mitigating factors in Li’s
case, including that Li agreed to compensate the victims’ family
and that he turned himself in.
“Society should be more rational,”
Mr. Tian told journalists. “We can’t sentence someone to death
because of public anger.”
But just days later, the court announced its
decision to hold the retrial. On Aug. 22, a crowd of villagers
formed around the municipal courthouse where the retrial was taking
place. The crowd stayed past dusk, shouting and brandishing signs,
Chinese news media reported.
The cries for blood in response to the Li case
mirrors another high-profile death penalty case this spring, in
which a university student murdered a young woman to cover up a
hit-and-run accident. Like the Li case, that case also elicited an
outpouring of public rage, particularly drawing on perceptions of
the defendant’s privileged family background.
Legal experts say it’s still too early to
determine whether these cases will have any long-term impact on how
public opinion shapes court rulings in China.
“The real problem isn’t public opinion; it’s that
the courts just aren’t independent enough,” says Xu Zhiyong, a
well-known legal scholar and human rights activist. “That’s what’s
not as it should be.”
本文由自动聚合程序取自网络，内容和观点不代表数字时代立场
