China's top court calls for regulation on clemency

BEIJING -- China's top court has called for strict regulation in court rulings on the commutation of punishment, parole and the temporary serving of sentences outside prisons by offenders.

At a national-level meeting held on Thursday by the Supreme People's Court on trial supervision, courts across the country were required to step up reviews of such clemency requests and improve judicial transparency.

According to data revealed at the meeting, since November 2012, Chinese courts have handled a total of 3.55 million punishment commutation applications and 180,000 parole applications. Among these, 24,000 cases have been denied clemency since 2015.

A digital platform handling such applications has been set up to better standardize the case handling and improve transparency, according to the meeting.

Citing some local malpractices in the work, the top court called for better regulation to rectify the problems exposed to ensure equality and social justice.