N&Q1 CAN WE REST EASY?
The following is an extract from a story by jonathan landreth published in The Times, 30July2009:
China plans to reduce the number of death sentences it hands out each year to “an extremely small number” and to reserve executions for only the most serious offenders.
In an interview published yesterday in the state-run Legal Daily, Zhang Jun, vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court, said that China would not abolish capital punishment but would restrict the number of executions and increase the use of a “death penalty with reprieve” sentence.
The newspaper said that the high court had been working to ensure that the death sentence was given only to those who have committed extremely serious crimes that lead to “grave social consequences” such as murder resulting from disputes.
The question for August is whether we may now sleep easier in our beds.
