China never considered scrapping death penalty for corruption crimes, claims lawmaker

BEIJING - A Chinese legislator, Chen Sixi, has said that the country has never considered scrapping the death penalty for those convicted of corruption in the draft amendment to the Criminal Law.

According to Xinhua, Chen said that corruption-related crimes have seriously damaged the reputation of China ,and therefore should be dealt with “harsh penalties.”

“Criminals convicted of corruption should be subject to harsh penalties and the draft amendment to the Criminal Law was not intended to eliminate capital punishment for such crimes,” Chen, member of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee and vice-chairman of the NPC’s Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs, added.

The eighth amendment to the Criminal Law, which proposed reducing the number of crimes punishable by the death penalty in a move to reduce death penalty executions and promote human rights, was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee on August 23 this year, Xinhua reports.

The draft amendment proposed eliminating capital punishment for 13 economic-related and non-violent offences, including smuggling cultural relics, falsely issuing exclusive value-added tax invoices to defraud export tax refunds or offset taxes, and teaching methods for committing crimes, which constituted almost 20 percent of the current 68 crimes punishable by the death penalty.

The draft amendment, however, was criticised for abolishing the death penalty for economic-related and non-violent offences, which could eventually help officials involved in corruption crimes escape capital punishment. (ANI)