Pain of death

24 August 2010 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

China may scrap capital punishment for most financial crimes. The extreme penalty partly reflected the importance of maintaining trust in Chinese financial institutions. But it also showed economic immaturity, and undermined China’s global standing.

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China's top legislature is considering a proposal to reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty, eliminating 13 nonviolent economic crimes from the list of capital offences. The amendment to the Criminal law would "temper justice with mercy", lawmakers said in a statement.

China currently allows the death penalty for 68 crimes, of which 19 are financial or economic. They include financial fraud, letter of credit fraud, counterfeiting currency, bribery and issuing fraudulent VAT invoices. Bribery would remain a capital offence.

Wu Ying, woman from Zhejiang province is in the process of appealing a death sentence handed down by a court in Zhejiang province for running an illegal banking operation. The sentence was given in December 2009.

Du Yimin, another Chinese entrepreneur, was executed in August 2009 for the crime of "fraudulent raising of public funds". She had been found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme, borrowing from clients and repaying them with the proceeds of new loans.

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