死刑存废、公众舆论与公众参与——以日本的裁判员制度为视点

国外的实践表明,限制、废除死刑是国家的宏观政治决策,所以公众舆论成为左右死刑决策的重要影响因素,是自然而然的事情。我国决策机构在限制、废除死刑问题上踌躇不前,主要原因也是社会公众对死刑及其适用的强烈支持。从死刑司法与公众舆论之间的互动与交替关系出发,我们应该积极利用公众舆论与死刑司法之间的相互作用机制,形成支持废除死刑的公众舆论,为今后的死刑改革奠定有利的公众舆论基础。从日本裁判员制度实施4年以来的死刑适用现状与舆论调查结果来看,通过扩大死刑司法的公众参与,让社会成员切身感受给出死刑判决所经受的压力,是改变死刑公众舆论的有效途径,完善人民陪审员制度、建立死刑信息公开制度、规范死刑案件公众参与同样是引导公众舆论的有效途径。

Existence or Abolishment of Death Penalty,Public Opinion and Public Participation -- From the Perspective of the Referee System of Japan

Practice abroad has shown that restriction and abolishment of death penalty are macro political decisions of countries; therefore, public opinion has become an important element affecting decision of death penalty, which is a natural thing. The main reason why the decision - making authority of our country has been hanging back about the problem of restriction and abolishment of death penalty is that the public strongly support death penalty and its application. Based on interactive and alternative relationship between death capital judicature and public opinion, we need to actively take advantage of interaction mechanism between public opinion and death penalty judicature and form public opinion supporting the abolition of death penalty in order to lay the good foundation of public opinion for the future reforms of death penalty. From the status quo of death penalty application of four years since the implementation of the referee system of Japan and public opinion survey, it is an effective way to let social members personally feel pressure given by death sentence by expanding public participation of death penalty judicature in order to change public opinion of death penalty. Besides, to improve people＇ s assessor, to establish disclosure system of death penalty information and to standardize public participation of death penalty cases are also effective in the guidance of public opinions.