Xiao did not give the figure on how many people were executed last year. However, presiding judge of the SPC's First Criminal Law Court Huang Ermei said in a recent media interview that the supreme court rejected 15 percent of death sentences for reasons including facts to be clarified, lack of evidences and procedure faults since the beginning of last year.

Rozi Ismail, president of the higher people's court of the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, told Xinhua that immediate executions after sentences in the region were reduced by half last year compared with 2006.

The SPC taking back the power of reviewing death sentences is a major reform in China's criminal justice system, which provides procedural guarantees for preventing misjudged cases and safeguarding offenders' legal rights, said the Xinjiang judge.