On June 10, 1981, the Standing Committee of the NPC decided to extend the temporary policy to 1983. Yet the end of 1983 witnessed China's first nationwide campaign to crack down on criminal offenses, under the principle that criminals should receive harsh timely punishment. This campaign created the conditions which allowed the review authority of death sentences to remain with provincial high courts for many years.

According to Jiang Xingchang, Vice President of Supreme People's Court, the decentralization of this review authority was an irregular policy to suit the deteriorating public security conditions shortly after the country's reform and opening up began.

"No one had expected the temporary decision tailored for one year to last over 20 years," said Gao Mingxuan, professor of Law School of Renmin University of China.

Death penalty review called for

Professor Chen Xingliang, a law expert on litigation and judicial reform with the Law School of Renmin University of China, believes that entrusting provincial high courts with the review right for the death penalty is essentially against the Constitution. In China's legislative system, the authority of Organic Law of People's Courts is inferior to that of the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law. Chen argued that it is unconstitutional for an "inferior law to contravene a superior law."

Professor Chen also believes allowing the provincial high courts to rule on executions has been creating inequality among criminals. As different high courts hold different judgment standards on the death penalty, it would create the situation that one criminal sentenced to death in one province could receive a lighter sentence in another province. Meanwhile, capital punishment for felonies such as murder and robbery was reviewed by provincial courts, while the death sentence for economic criminals and national security offenders was reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. This caused an inconsistency when sentences were passed for various crimes.

Ever since the death penalty review was partly bestowed to local courts, calls for its return to the Supreme People's Court has been ongoing.

"Strictly speaking, the return of review right of the death penalty is actually reasserting the rule of law," said Huang Songyou, Vice President of Supreme People's Court.

March 17, 1996 witnessed the adoption of the amendment to the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law at the NPC's annual session, reclaiming the right to review the death penalty by the Supreme People's Court.

Yet five days before October 1, 1997, the official implementation date for the amended Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, the Supreme People's Court released an order to maintain the division of review tasks between the Supreme People's Court and provincial courts.

Around that time, workshops were held on the abolishment of the death penalty and the return of the death penalty review procedure. "Different opinions existed in academia over whether the death penalty should be abolished, but all scholars agreed upon the return of death penalty review authority," said professor Gao Mingxuan.

Why did it take the Supreme People's Court so long to retrieve the review for death sentences? Zhou Daoluan, who then headed the research department of the Supreme People's Court, said that the court had been thinking about recalling the authority to review since 1996, with much vocal support from most provincial high courts. "The workload of the Supreme People's Court was so heavy that it could not find enough staff to deal with the resultant extra work pressure if reviews were reinstated," said Zhou.

However, since 2000, media coverage on some controversial death sentence cases triggered strong public grievance and increasing calls for the return of the death penalty review process. Prompted by this, the Supreme People's Court put the death penalty reform on its work agenda.

Full scale judicial reform

Many experts believe that the reform on reviewing the death penalty may herald a full-scale criminal trial reform. The practical progress has already shed light on such a trend.

The closed court ruling of death penalty cases on the second trial could be up for reform. It is stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Law that "a people's court of second instance shall open a court session to hear a case protested by a people's procuratorate."

"Yet in practice, open court session becomes the minority while closed trial has become the norm," said Zhou Daoluan.

In addition, the return of the review authority of the death penalty will solve the overlapping between trial authority and review authority that exist in death sentences. Under China's two-trial system, the court of second instance of death penalty, namely the provincial high court, is also the review body of the death penalty. Such a scenario will harm the credibility of the review result.

At the end of 2005, the Supreme People's Court issued a circular requiring provincial high courts of second instance to open a court session to hear a death penalty case challenged by a people's procuratorate, if the challenge questions the essential facts and evidence since 2006. The circular also asked provincial high courts to openly judge all death penalty cases on the second trial from the second half of 2006.

According to a field survey conducted by the Law School of Renmin University of China, the new circular has exerted enormous work pressure on local courts, but provincial high courts have provided personnel and financial support to guarantee the implementation of the new regulation.

President of the Supreme People's Court Xiao Yang said the review of death sentence would be made through promoting open ruling for the second trials of death penalty cases. He believes that "it offers defendants sentenced to death one more opportunity to have their voice heard in court."

"Supreme People's Court's decision to openly try death penalty cases on the second trial is a practical choice to separate trial and review of death penalty cases, which will promote full-scale judicial reform," said professor Chen Weidong of Law School of Renmin University of China.