CHINA’S top legislature yesterday 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.

Under the new legislation, to take effect from Jan. 1 next year, all death penalties pronounced by local courts must be reviewed and ratified by the Supreme People’s Court.

Currently, the Supreme Court has no oversight over death sentence rulings by lower courts on violent crimes such as homicide, rape and robbery.

The Supreme People’s Court announced last year it would start reviewing death sentences, ending a 23-year-old practice of allowing provincial courts to have the final review. In June, State media said the court had begun hiring dozens of judges for the task.

“It’s great news. This is a big step forward for China’s legal system,” said Li Heping, a prominent lawyer.

The amendment deprives the provincial people’s courts of the final say on issuing death sentences and death penalties handed out by provincial courts must be reviewed and ratified by the Supreme People’s Court.

Xiao Yang, the nation’s chief justice, said it was “an important procedural step to prevent wrongful convictions.”

“It will also give the defendants in death sentence cases one more chance to have their opinions heard,” Xiao was quoted as saying.

The Supreme People’s Court was responsible for reviewing all death penalty cases until 1983 when, as part of a major crackdown on crime, provincial courts were given the authority to issue final verdicts on death sentences for crimes that seriously endangered public security and social order, including homicide, rape, robbery and the criminal use of explosives.

Complaints have been rife in recent years that lower-level courts were mishandling death penalty cases.

In China, capital punishment falls into two categories — a death penalty with the criminal to be executed immediately following the sentence, and death with a two-year reprieve.

Over the years, the government has been urged by some countries to abolish the death sentence. Xiao said China’s policy is to keep the death penalty, but to use it with caution.

At present, over one-third of the countries and regions in the world have the death penalty, covering half of the world’s total population.

Chinese legal professionals believe China will eventually abolish the death penalty.

“China is on the direction of abolishing the death sentence. But it will take time,” said Zhang Yumao, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

(SD-Xinhua)