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China's supreme court has made sound preparations and is ready to take back the death penalty review right from local higher courts, said the chief justice on Friday.

Xiao Yang, President of China's Supreme People's Court (SPC), said at a criminal judge conference that preparations have been progressing and the SPC is "basically ready" to exercise its right to review the death penalty from Jan. 1 next year.

He ordered judges to exercise extreme caution when sentencing people to death, saying that every judgement must stand the test of time.

Only an "extremely small number" of serious offenders should be given the capital sentence, he said.

The SPC used to review all death penalty cases until 1983. But provincial courts were later given the authority for crimes that seriously endangered public security and social order, such as homicide, rape, robbery and the criminal use of explosives.

The practice of provincial courts handling both death sentence appeals and conducting final reviews, however, has drawn sharp criticism in recent years in the wake of some highly-publicized miscarriages of justice.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, adopted an amendment in October to the organic law on the people's court, ending the practice of allowing executions on the order of lower-level courts.

The legal change will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2007.

To prepare for the changes, the SPC has added three criminal tribunals to the previous two and expanded the death penalty review team from 50 to 100 judges.

Many of the judges were recruited from local courts and have finished their three-month training at the highest court. They will be on probation for a year before officially assuming office.

The number of judges exercising death penalty review rights is expected to rise as the SPC is working on a plan to recruit experienced lawyers and law school teachers as senior judges.

In China, capital punishment falls into two categories -- a death penalty in which the criminal is executed immediately after sentencing, and death with a two-year reprieve.

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2006)