BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Premier Wen Jiabao said here Monday that is country will not abolish death penalty due to consideration to its own national conditions during the on-going drive to reform China judicial system.

    According to Xiao Yang, chief justice of the Supreme People's Court, China will refine its death penalty review process this year to ensure capital punishment to be meted out carefully and fairly.

    China's existing laws dictate that all death penalty ruling, given by local intermediate people's courts or above, should be submitted to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) for approval, but incases involving violent crimes like murder, rape and robbery, provincial higher courts are entitled to approve executions.

    The Organic Law of the People's Court of China, a law that allows lower courts to have the execution approval right, was promulgated in 1983 when intensified efforts were made to crack down on rampant crimes.

    But the situation is very different from what it was 20 years ago, and the SPC has been studying how to revoke the approval right of executions from lower courts, after its top officials repeatedly revealed last year that the reform should be carried out when it is appropriate.

    Earlier reports said that large proportions of death penalty cases are approved by provincial courts and only those high-profile cases are submitted to the Supreme People's Court.

    Experts consider that people will feel safer of the death penalty system after the approval right is reserved to the supremecourt, since there will be only one set of standard for capital punishment.

    Currently, people who commit similar crimes may be put to deathin some provinces but kept alive in others due to varied court standards, some experts argue.

    It is believed that if the SPC has the last say on executions, miscarriages of justice can be largely prevented and halted. Enditem