Nov. 9
CHINA:
Death penalty needs higher review, caution
At an academic meeting recently, Justice Huang Songyou, vice-president of
the Supreme People's Court, proposed a way that may relieve the stress
placed on judges and avoid wrongful executions - return reviews of death
sentences to the Supreme Court.
Huang's proposal has rekindled contemplation of the nation's death penalty
system as well as criminal law values.
China's criminal procedural law already requires the Supreme Court to
check every death sentence exclusively to help avoid wrongful executions
taking place.
Considering the limited number of presiding judges within the Supreme
Court, however, the legislature issued several codes in the 1980s allowing
higher courts in provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities to review
death sentences in some cases concerning offences of violence, such as
homicide and arson.
This change produces something of a paradox. The criminal procedure
authorizes intermediate courts to hear cases that could lead to imposition
of the death penalty, and higher courts to hear a retrial following an
appeal, which is then conclusive. Therefore, asking higher courts to check
death sentences decided by themselves does not seem to make much sense.
As a matter of fact, Huang's proposal is backed almost unanimously among
legal professionals. By excluding any likely randomness in measuring up
capital punishment criteria by individual provinces and making the
pre-execution review a real chance for capital crime suspects, the Supreme
Court's monopoly of death sentence review tallies with a fundamental
criminal law value: respect life and be "extremely cautious" in using
capital punishment.
The focus is now on the technical front: Can the Supreme Court do the job?
How much financial and personnel support will it receive? Will it set up
circuit tribunals nationwide to handle this extremely important task?
It's now up to the Supreme Court and the legislature to work out an answer
to stop sacrificing the values of criminal law for expedience.
(source: Xinhua News)
***********************
British spy spared death sentence
A senior Chinese official accused of spying for Britain has been sentenced
to 15 years in prison after a secret trial.
Cai Xiaohong, formerly Beijings representative in Hong Kong, took 380,000
in cash from British Intelligence services, according to media reports in
the former British colony.
Analysts told The Times that they were surprised that Mr Cai had not
received the death penalty and speculated that he may have given valuable
information on MI6 operations in China to Beijing under a plea bargain. Mr
Cai is the highest- ranking Communist cadre on the mainland to have been
convicted of spying for a foreign power.
His downfall coincided with Tony Blairs most recent visit to Hong Kong, in
2003, and his arrest was first made public this year. Wei Pingyuan, a
lower- ranking official who helped to recruit Mr Cai, is said to have also
been tried in Guangzhou last week.
He was given an unspecified but harsher penalty, which may mean that he
was given the death sentence.
Mr Wei was accused of having become a formal member of a British
Intelligence service, while Mr Cai only occasionally supplied non-public
information in exchange for money.
Mr Wei was a senior official at the Xinhua news agency, whose Hong Kong
office functioned as Beijings de facto representative office before the
1997 handover and the establishment of the liaison office.
His main focus was Taiwan, a highly sensitive area but one of limited
interest to British Intelligence.
The trials took place in Guangzhou, across the border from Hong Kong.
Beijing has long been worried that Hong Kong is being used as a
springboard for spies, but was stunned to find that one of its top
officials in the city had been turned.
As director-general of the liaison office of the central government in
Hong Kong, Mr Cai had access to top-secret deliberations about the status
of the city.
Mr Cai is one of Chinas "princelings", or sons of the countrys political
elite. His father, Cai Cheng, was Justice Minister in the late 1980s. His
grandparents were among the 1st members of the Communist Party in the
1920s and were sent to work for Beijing in Hong Kong in the 1940s.
He was detained after an investigation into business dealings by his wife,
who now lives in London.
According to Western and Chinese sources, Mrs Cai was employed at a
company owned by a former Xinhua official in Hong Kong. The officials
surprise departure from government service several years ago is said to
have triggered a large-scale surveillance operation of his company, which
is based in the southern city of Shenzhen.
The official was detained last year. Chinese security services then
investigated his business partners and focused on Mr Cai, who had been
based in Hong Kong for 14 years.
In September, Mr Cai was detained on the mainland after being asked to
report to superiors on routine business.
(source: The Times)
INDONESIA/MALAYSIA:
Susilo to seek Badawi's clemency
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will request leniency from Malaysian
authorities for an Indonesian migrant worker on death row when he meets
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit on Nov. 21.
Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Fahmi Idris said on Monday the
President understood crimes could not be left unpunished, but the murder
involving 22-year-old Herlina Trisnawati was not premeditated.
"Our target is to help her escape the death sentence. In his instruction,
the President ensures that every Indonesian citizen facing legal problems
abroad must be assisted," Fahmi said after a Cabinet meeting.
Malaysia's High Court (the lowest level of court for severe crimes)
convicted Herlina last week for killing her employee Soon Lay Chuan on
Aug. 14, 2001 and sentenced her to death.
Herlina hit Soon with a stone pestle after Soon reprimanded her for
burning the food. Soon tried to fight back with a knife, but Herlina
managed to grab it and stabbed Soon several times.
Her lawyer pleaded for temporary insanity, saying that Herlina was under
high stress and was not fully aware of what she was doing.
However, the court rejected the plea and dismissed a suggestion for
Herlina to see a psychiatrist.
The Indonesian Embassy, through the lawyer, appealed the verdict on
Friday.
For the appeal hearing, the embassy would hire a new local lawyer, and has
asked for the legal transcript of the hearings to find any loopholes in
the verdict.
The embassy is also sending Herlina's parents to see her at the Malaysian
penitentiary center upon her request.
It will be the Malaysian king who will decide whether to pardon Herlina,
but the prime minister could give advice to do so.
Fahmi said to prepare the defense plea, Herlina's lawyer will be invited
to Indonesia next week and meet her family to explain the ongoing legal
process for Herlina.
"We are going to do what we can to have her sentence lowered because she
did not commit premeditated murder," he said.
The Migrant Care non-governmental organization (NGO) joined in to pressure
the Malaysian government to commute Herlina's death penalty, saying she
was a victim of domestic violence in Malaysia.
"Unfortunately, the Malaysian media have always blamed foreign workers
rather than looking deeper into the root of the problem," the NGO said in
a statement.
It said domestic workers were also the least protected foreign working
community as the Malaysia Employment Act does not provide any form of
legal protection for them.
"Sentencing Herlina to death will not solve fundamental domestic violence
problems because there are more than 300,000 Herlinas in Malaysia and
there is a tendency of converting their grievous hurt in revenge against
their employers," it said.
(source: Jakarta Post)
BANGLADESH:
The flawed development planning and execution
That the public sector development projects have been facing serious
difficulties in their planning and execution stages is a story told again
and again. But the issue is so serious in nature that stakeholders can
hardly ignore it. Donors do talk about it quite loudly and the government
leaders and officials listen to the same, showing a few signs of
embarrassment. At times, the government issues directives to work out a
formula to resolve problems that have been bedevilling the planning and
implementation of development projects for decades. But the difficulties
of all sorts continue to persist since the core issues have remained
unresolved.
A report published Monday in this daily, quoting concerned officials, said
the government move to ensure transparency and efficiency in both
selection and execution of development projects have by and large fallen
flat. Vested interests, political pressures and procedural complexities
are still dominant factors. Alleged hostility between the executives and
the planning officials is yet another unrecognised problem responsible for
unnecessary delays in the planning process. The first hurdle does appear
in the selection of development projects. Interested quarters do very
often try to push through projects of their choice which, in most cases,
are non-viable and have little relevance to the national development
objectives. Besides, the time-consuming selection and approval of
development projects, for obvious reasons, push up their costs and do
leave a demoralising effect on the planners as well donors who provide
most part of the development funds.
The line ministries generally do not pay that much of attention to the
quality of projects that they are sending to the Planning Commission for
approval. In the face of pressures from different quarters, including
ministers and top bureaucrats, they send projects right and left to the
Commission, thus, creating a glut of projects there. The number of
projects that are sent by the line ministries could well be guessed from
the backlog of unapproved projects that are lying with the Commission. The
FE report mentioned that the implementation of the unapproved projects
accumulated over the years alone would cost at least Tk. 1000 billion.
This amount is equivalent to the size of six Annual Development Programmes
(ADPs).
A couple of weeks back, another report published in the FE portrayed a
dismal picture relating to the implementation of the ADP for the current
fiscal year (2004-05). The line ministries could utilise, on an average,
only five per cent of the development funds during the fist quarter. The
floods and heavy rains in the months of August and September could be
major reasons for such a poor utilisation of development funds. But in
previous years also, the situation had not been that different.
The inability to use development funds by various ministries and
government agencies is a chronic problem. The government halfway through a
financial year downsizes the ADPs. It does not show any reason for such
pruning of the capital budget. The shortage of resources might be one of
the reasons. However, it can be safely said, under the given
circumstances, the line ministries would never be able to fully utilise
their development funds in any particular year. The ministries do have
neither the will nor the capacity to execute all the development projects
that are included in the ADP. Actually, the entire planning and
implementation process concerning the development projects is flawed. It
needs something more than piecemeal efforts. Maybe, a thorough overhauling
is the most viable answer.
(source: Editorial, Financial Times)
