Two senior judges have proposed a new law that would include possible death sentences for drunken drivers found guilty of causing fatal road accidents and then trying to flee the crime scene, the Jinan Daily reported Tuesday.
Gao Guijun, presiding judge at the Fifth Criminal Court of the Supreme People's Court, and his deputy, Han Weizhong, suggested in an article published in Law Science Magazine that drunken drivers who resist arrest or cause severe losses while trying to flee the scene of a serious accident should be prosecuted under a new criminal law called dangerous driving, punishable with up to the death penalty.
The suggestion came out amid China's ongoing crackdown on drunken driving, which caused many fatalities last year and triggered an urgent public call for harsher punishments for all traffic accident crimes.
Before last year's crackdown, drunken drivers in China were seldom sentenced to death even if they caused significant property damage or loss of life.
However, the judges specified that the death sentence should only be applied to drunken drivers who are responsible for fatal accidents and then cause further damage or loss of life while trying to flee the scene.
The judges say the proposed law would help rein in soaring drunken driving cases.
Under the current system, fleeing drunken drivers who cause serious losses are tried on charges of endangering public security, which is also punishable with the death penalty.
