The country’s top court will overturn death sentences in cases where evidence was collected by illegal means, in a move to further limit the application of capital punishment and pressure local courts to check evidence more thoroughly, a senior judicial official said.

Previously, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), in reviewing death sentences, would ask for a supplementary investigation or other evidence to be submitted if any evidence had been gained through illegal means.

“But starting this year, such cases will be directly rejected, and this will put more pressure on local courts and other judicial organs,” SPC Vice-President Zhang Jun was quoted as saying by China National Radio at a forum in Beijing on Saturday.

He said the existing rules, which state that evidence collected through illegal means should be excluded from court deliberations, were not well implemented.

“Forced confessions do exist in reality and lawyers sometimes state in court that torture has been used to get a confession, but very rarely do the courts determine that forced confessions exist,” Zhang said.

“However, almost all the wrong cases that have been exposed are related to forced confessions, such as the case of Zhao Zuohai,” he said.

Zhao, a villager from Henan province, was behind bars for 11 years until the man he allegedly murdered turned up alive on April 30 last year. Zhao later said he was tortured by police, who forced him to confess to the “crime”.

Two regulations, jointly issued last July by the top court, the top procuratorate, the ministries of public security, State security and justice, stipulated that evidence obtained illegally – such as through torture – cannot be used in testimony, particularly in cases involving the death penalty.

The regulations insist that a death sentence should be pronounced only with sufficient evidence acquired through legal means.

They are the first specific rules on collection of evidence and reviews of death sentences in criminal cases, according to the top court.

Zhang reminded defense lawyers on Saturday to pay more attention to the validity of evidence, as the two regulations clearly stipulate that illegal evidence cannot be submitted.

Since the top court took back the power to review and ratify death sentences in 2007, the number of executions has decreased, Zhang said.

He did not specify the number of death penalties carried out each year, but Hu Yunteng, head of the research department under the SPC, told China Daily last year that the top court has overturned, on average, 10 percent of all death sentences nationwide since 2007.

Speaking to China Daily on Sunday, Hu said that the top court’s further tightening of rules regarding evidence will put more pressure on lower courts and make them more alert to illegal evidence being submitted.

Another legal expert said that the move will result in a reduction of executions.

“It’ll be conducive to reducing the number of executions and handling death penalty cases in a just and objective manner,” said Zhao Bingzhi, head of the criminal law research committee under the China Law Society.

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