BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China will improve the review process for death penalty and will never loosen control over the punishment again, said Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on Wednesday.

    Investigation has been made by the SPC to draft guidelines and judicial explanations for valid use of death penalty, Xiao told Xinhua after a panel discussion with lawmakers from north Shanxi Province.

    The SPC has trained all the judges who are qualified to hear capital crime cases to equip them with a uniform understanding of the laws and a uniform standard in judgment, Xiao said.

    In 2006 alone, over 5,500 judges across the country received training, according to Xiao.

    In his work report to the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on Tuesday, Xiao pledged that death penalty will be exercised "more cautiously for only a small number of extremely serious offenders with hard evidence".

    The SPC loosened its control over death penalty review in 1983 amid rising crimes following the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

    The review power has been formally retrieved by the SPC since the beginning of 2007.