The UK based Financial Times is reporting "China's top court has instructed local courts to hold public hearings for all death penalty appeals starting next year, part of a broader attempt to make capital punishment procedures more open.
The Supreme People's Court reported that open hearings would be held for highly controversial death sentence court appeals from January 1 and for all death sentence appeals from the second half of the year.
Beijing's efforts to reform its death sentence proceedings gradually are part of a wider attempt to reduce the number of wrongful convictions, a pervasive problem in China's criminal justice system. The notice appears to be influenced by the rash of wrongful death sentences reported recently and, in theory, will allow important witnesses or family members to voice their final concerns...
China's record on such human rights issues has come under the scrutiny of a rare United Nations investigation and some media outlets. Manfred Nowak, a UN special envoy on a research mission to China, said last week the UN was concerned with "the high number of crimes for which the death penalty can be applied" in China. It advised Beijing to "limit the scope of the death penalty by abolishing it for economic and non-violent crimes" and to consider legislation allowing direct petitioning of the highest court when lower courts fail to provide "adequate relief"."
Hopefully the UN will also scrutinise application of the mandatory death penalty in Singapore and neighbouring countries, because this is an ongoing blight on the human rights record of the region.
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