On Expanding The Application Of Death Penalty With A Two-year Reprieve From View Of The Policy Of Strictly Restricting Death Penalty

The present attitude of the international society toward death penaltyis either restriction or abolishment, but the general trend is abolishment.The campaign of abolishing death penalty has not developed smoothly,and death penalty has even been abolished and recovered several times insome countries. Despite this fact, countries restricting or abolishing deathpenalty have increased since the 1960s, making up a world trend, andworldwide abolishment of death penalty has become an irreversibleinternational tide. Under this international circumstances, China's rationaldecision is to adopt the policy of strictly restricting the application ofdeath penalty. For a certain period in the future, China ought to graduallyincrease the application of death sentence with a two-year reprieve so asto restrict the actual application of death penalty. To gradually increasethe application of death sentence with a two-year reprieve does not goagainst the policy of strictly restricting the application of death penalty inthat the former implements and embodies the latter while the latter servesas a guide and a basis of the former. In the present situation, national andinternational, to gradually increase the application of death sentence witha two-year reprieve is not only necessary but also feasible.This thesis falls into four parts.In the first part, a brief account is given on "strictly restricting theapplication of death penalty" as well as on gradually increasing that ofdeath sentence with a two-year reprieve. As a background of this thesis,this part briefly introduces and analyses the present attitude of theinternational society toward death penalty and the abolishment of death penalty in countries around the world, analyses factors resulting in theexpansion of applying death penalty and the ones leading to therestriction and the decrease of applying death penalty, demonstrates thatthe policy of strictly restricting the application of death penalty is arational choice, and discusses, at the end of this part, the relation betweengradually increasing the application of death sentence with a two-yearreprieve and the policy of strictly restricting the application of deathpenalty, pointing out that the former implements and embodies the latterwhile the latter serves as a guide and a basis of the former.In the second part, this thesis demonstrates the necessity of graduallyincreasing the application of death sentence with a two-year reprieve. Tostart with, the thesis introduces how the system of death sentence with atwo-year reprieve came into being and evolved, the characters andfunctions of this system, the argument on this system and the writer'sremarks on the argument. On this basis, this thesis demonstrates thenecessity of expanding the application of death sentence with a two-yearreprieve for a certain period in the future to restrict the actual applicationof death penalty. It discusses mainly from the following five aspects:implementing the policy of strictly restricting the application of deathpenalty, effort to approach the aim of abolishing death penalty, fulfillingthe international conventions on human rights, giving full play to thesystem of death sentence with a two-year reprieve, overcoming themalpractice of immediate execution of death penalty.The third part of this thesis discusses the feasibility of expanding theapplication of death sentence with a two-year reprieve. It discusses fromfour aspects: first, the objective of eventually abolishing death penaltyprovides room for expanding the application of death sentence with a two-year reprieve; second, the system of death sentence with a two-yearreprieve has in itself the qualities for expanding; third, China hascurrently met the social conditions for expanding the system; fourth, thesuccessful practice of the system provides ample experience forexpanding the system.The fourth part deals with ways to expanding the application of thesystem of death sentence with a two-year reprieve. It demonstrates thatthe expansion of the system can be achieved through three ways:adjusting the ideas concerning death penalty of the judicial staff and thecitizens, amending the provisions relating to the system of death sentencewith a two-year reprieve, issuing judicial interpretation.