This is a two-year project funded by Global Opportunities Fund. Our Chinese partner is the Legislative Affairs Commission (LAC) of National People’s Congress of China. The project aims at promoting the reform of death penalty reviewing procedures and making the application of death penalty in China more strict and cautious.

In 2005, the research team from (LAC) conducted field research in 7 provinces including Yunnan, Sichuan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jilin, Chongqing and Hubei, where they collected valuable data regarding the local death penalty reviewing cases.

Sino-British Seminar on Sentencing and Appealing was held in Beijing in January 2006. Judge Roger Sanders, Barrister Dee Connolly and Prof. Neil Hutton from the UK attended the seminar. They did presentations on the sentencing and appealing principle and practice in the English and Scottish justice system for Chinese legislators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers and academics.

Since February 2006, LAC has held a few internal workshop with Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate to discuss on the death penalty reviewing procedures and more issues widely related to the amendments of Criminal Procedure Law.

LAC will also meet academics, lawyers and more legal practitioners to seek their opinions on the legislative issues.

The project will end in March 2007.