CHINA OVERTURNS 15 PERCENT OF DEATH SENTENCES

China's highest court overturned 15 percent of all death sentences reviewed in the first half of this year, an official newspaper said, although the total number of executions carried out remains a state secret.
The China Daily touted the rejection rate as a sign of the high degree of scrutiny exercised by the court since it took back the right of final review from lower courts last year. Most death sentences were overturned for lack of evidence or because they were 'inappropriate,' the paper quoted Judge Gao Jinghong, of the Supreme People's Court's Third Criminal Law Court, as saying.China is following international trends in reducing numbers of executions and could eliminate the death penalty altogether 'when social conditions demand so,' the paper said. 'But for now it has to stay.'
In a speech to the national legislature this spring, the head of the Supreme People's Court said only "extremely vile criminals" were executed in China last year, claiming reform efforts had been an untrammeled success.Prospects for further change are uncertain.
Zhou Yongkang, who handles law and order issues on the Communist Party's supreme nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, told judges and prosecutors earlier this month that China's unique political, cultural and economic orientation ruled out the adoption of Western legal standards.