Victim-Perpetrator Reconciliation Agreements in Murder Cases: What Can Muslim-Majority Jurisdictions and the PRC Learn from Each Other?

34 Pages Posted: 17 Feb 2017 Last revised: 10 May 2019

See all articles by Daniel Pascoe

Daniel Pascoe

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) - School of Law; City University of Hong Kong (CityU) - Centre for Chinese & Comparative Law

Michelle Miao

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law; Stanford University - Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Date Written: February 16, 2017

Abstract

As states that use the death penalty liberally in a world that increasingly favours abolition, the Muslim-majority jurisdictions that are strict exponents of Islamic Law and the People’s Republic of China share a crucial commonality: their frequent use of victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements to remove convicted murderers from the threat of execution. In both cases, rather than a prisoner’s last chance at escaping execution being recourse to executive clemency, victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements fulfil largely the same purpose, together with providing means of compensating victims for economic loss, and enabling the state concerned to reduce execution numbers without formally limiting the death penalty’s scope in law. Utilizing the functionalist approach of comparative law methodology, this article compares the thirteen death penalty retentionist nations that have incorporated Islamic Law principles into their positive criminal law with the People’s Republic of China, as to the functions underpinning victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements in death penalty cases.

Keywords: China, Islamic Law, Death Penalty, Comparative Law, Reconciliation, Clemency, Pardon, Criminal Law

JEL Classification: K14, K42

Suggested Citation

Pascoe, Daniel and Miao, Michelle, Victim-Perpetrator Reconciliation Agreements in Murder Cases: What Can Muslim-Majority Jurisdictions and the PRC Learn from Each Other? (February 16, 2017). (2017) 66(4) International & Comparative Law Quarterly 963, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2919163 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2919163

Daniel Pascoe (Contact Author)

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) - School of Law ( email )

Tat Chee Avenue
Kowloon Tong, Kowloon
Hong Kong

HOME PAGE: http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/slw/people/people_daniel.html

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) - Centre for Chinese & Comparative Law

83 Tat Chee Avenue
Room P5300, 5th Floor, Academic 1
Kowloon Tong
Hong Kong

Michelle Miao

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law ( email )

Shatin, N.T.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/en/people/info.php?id=229

Stanford University - Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences ( email )

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