死刑控制与最高人民法院的功能定位

死刑控制与最高人民法院的关系是社会各界关注的热点问题。分析表明,2007年以来最高人民法院全面收回死刑复核权,对其自身造成了一系列影响;最高人民法院的内部结构与实际功能,由此发生了深刻变化。这些变化并不完全符合现代法治理念下最高人民法院的功能定位。未来应该在考虑政治与社会条件的基础上,有步骤地改造最高人民法院在死刑控制方面的工作职能与方式,以减轻最高人民法院不必要的工作负担与资源消耗,促进最高人民法院将更多的资源用于应对更加宏观、复杂的问题。

Control of the Death Penalty and Function of the Supreme People's Court

The full recovery by the Supreme Court of the authority to review and approve death sentences in 2007 has to a certain extent reduced the number of death sentence, but it also had a profound impact on the Supreme Court itself. Firstly, the organizational structure of the Supreme Court has changed. The death sentence review body becomes the most important trial section and judges responsible for the review of death sentences the largest group of personnel of the Supreme Court. Secondly, the functional system of the Court has changed. Because of the drastic increase in the number of death sentence review cases, the individual case handling function of the Court becomes more powerful and prominent, resulting in the transformation of the status of and relationship between various functions of the Court and the rise of the position of the individual criminal cases handling function of the Court at the micro level. These changes are not completely in conformity with the organization and function of the Supreme Court under the modern system of the rule of law. Firstly, the expansion of death sentence review body is not in conformity with the status of the Supreme Court as an elite court. Secondly, the comprehensive and painstaking intervention in all death penalty cases by the Supreme Court could undermine the Court''s ability to deal with more important issues and impede the realization of the macro-functions of the Supreme Court, such as unification of the legal system and formation of judicial policies. In the future, the Court should reform its functions and working mode with respect to the review of death sentences in a step-by-step way in light of changing political and social conditions.