China's top legislature on Sunday began deliberating a treaty on
judicial cooperation with Portugal on the transfer of convicted
persons.
The treaty would allow convicted persons in both nations to
serve prison sentences in their own countries closer to their
families.
It was submitted to the weeklong 31st session of the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top
legislature, for approval.
According to the treaty, signed in Beijing in January, transfer
of convicted persons would only be applied to convicted persons of
Chinese or Portuguese nationalities. They would need to have at
least one year on their sentence remaining at the time of
submission of the request of transfer.
The 19-article treaty also stipulated transfer of convicted
persons should only be conducted after it was acceded by sentenced
prisoners themselves.
"Since the concept of offender transfers serves a very important
humanitarian purpose, legal rights of convicted prisoners should be
guaranteed," Minister of Justice Wu Aiying said while briefing
lawmakers during the session.
Wu said transfer of convicted persons would facilitate prisoners
to get helps from their family members and eliminated cultural and
communication obstacles for them when serving time in foreign
countries.
She added the treaty would further enhance judicial cooperation
between the two countries, as well as bilateral cooperation.
Statistics showed that 70 Chinese were imprisoned in Portugal,
while a lone Portuguese was serving time in China as of June.
Since 2002, China had signed treaties on transfer of convicted
persons with the Ukraine, Russia and Spain.
(Xinhua News Agency December 24, 2007)
