A defence council is provided, Abrecht explained, and each death sentence is reviewed by the supreme people s court, but the review power remains with the provincial people 's court for the acceleration of the procedure. However, this procedure is not really effective since judgements are hardly ever reversed, and suspended verdicts have almost no effect on actual executions. The fact that it mostly takes two weeks only from the conviction to the execution was regarded as proof that a review did not take place. The number of executions varies strongly connected with campaigns against crime - symbolic politics, Albrecht said, but no data is available from official sources. Amnesty international collects the figures from publicly available sources such as newspapers.
Real number is supposed to be four- to fivefold than the known executions.
Due to the fact that China's prisoner rates are actually low, it must be said that the death penalty is an significant penalty in absolute numbers and relative size compared with imprisonment - in contrast to other countries like the USA, or Russia. The official position towards the capital punishment regards it as practical necessity, but should be restricted, and the abolition could be long-term goal of criminal policy. There is some abolitionist discourse among Chinese scholars. Generally, Chinese scholars begin to take over American legal discourse favouring the penalty. Also the idea of early 20th century German scholar Eugen Ehrlich, who thought that with each execution, 7-8 murders could be avoided, is part of Chinese criminological reasoning.