law - Public hearings in appeals death penalty

The Supreme People's Court has instructed courts in China to hold public hearings in the case of appeals against a death penalty from the start of 2006, writes the Financial Times. The thousands of death penalties have put China on the international blacklist for decades and since the end of last year Chinese media have openly started to discuss the issue.
Lower courts, responsible for the highly-popular death penalty, have been reluctant to hand back the responsibility to higher courts and this instruction seems another step of higher judicial authorities in getting more grip on the issue.