After several similar criminal cases led to greatly varying punishments triggering public concerns, Chinese courts are adopting a series of measures to ensure uniform standards for sentencing criminals.

On Oct. 1, two documents that instruct judges on uniform procedures for sentence measurements will be put into use in all Chinese courts, which is said to be a "major reform" for the country's legal system regarding criminal prosecution.

According to the new procedures, courts should first set up a penalty baseline for a criminal case based upon basic criminal facts. Then additional punishments will be added according to the amount of money involved, the frequency of the defendants' violations, the consequences and other factors. At last, courts will adjust the results considering the case's overall nature and issue a final sentence.

The move came after a series of similar drunk driving cases that led to greatly varying punishments.

In July 2009, the Intermediate People's Court of Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan Province sentenced a drunk driver named Sun Weiming to death following an auto accident in which he was driving without a license and killed four people. In the second trial, the verdict was changed to life imprisonment.

Sun's case was deemed as a crime against public security.

However, one month later another drunk driver in central China's Henan Province only received a jail term of six years and six months for killing six and injuring seven people.

That case was ruled to be a traffic accident crime.

"(The reform) is of significant importance for regulating judicial actions, providing uniform standards for law applications, promoting righteous and uncorrupted justice and boosting the authority and credibility of the country's courts," said Wang Shengjun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), at a Thursday meeting.

"The Criminal Law only lays down a very wide range of sentences for certain types of crimes, and thus it is very difficult for prosecutors to give a specific sentence based on that," said SPC vice president Xiong Xuanguo in an exclusive interview with Xinhua Thursday.

Xiong noted that different judges, given their different knowledge, manners and experience, will also have varied views on the same case.

According to the documents, another major change is to introduce advice on sentence measurements from procuratorate organs, including the types and scopes of punishments and how to implement them.

Also, courts are allowed to organize public prosecutors, parties involved, their defenders and legal representatives to offer their own advice on sentencing measurements.

With the introduction of sentencing measurement advice from defenders, legal representatives and other parties involved, the new rules were expected to balance judges' considerable powers of discretion, said Professor Chen Weidong with the Renmin University of China.

According to the SPC, since June last year more than 120 pilot Chinese courts have already been following the new procedures when prosecuting 45,000 criminal cases in 15 regular categories, including traffic accidents, robbery, theft, and drugs, among others.

The trial practice has seen positive results as sentences among cases of similar natures and those in different regions were not as varied as before.

The rate of appeals and change of sentences in second trials also dropped in these courts, according to Xiong.

Meanwhile, Xiong sought to assure those concerned that the new rules would not excessively limit judges' powers as "the standards for sentence measurements, themselves, were made based on all prosecutors' discretion." "If the measurement results are not appropriate, judges will still have the right to make certain adjustments," Xiong said, adding that local courts will also set down detailed sentence measures according to the characteristics of their regions.

"The reform is an inevitable process for China's criminal prosecution to transform from rough estimation to precise, scientific and canonical," Professor Chen said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2010)