The power of commutation shall be exercised by the people's court.
Article 79 Procedures for Commutation of Criminal Law For commutation of a criminal, the executing organ shall submit a proposal for commutation to the people's court at or above the intermediate level. When trying a case, the people's court shall form a collegial panel, and if there are facts of repentance or meritorious service, it shall make a ruling to reduce the sentence. Without legal procedures, the sentence may not be reduced.
Judging from the nature of commutation, the right to commutation should be exercised by people's courts, prisons and other penalty enforcement agencies.
Commutation takes place during the execution of punishment in prison. In the process of serving a sentence, a criminal can only get a reduced sentence if he "has truly repented or rendered meritorious service" or "has made significant meritorious service". It shows that commutation depends on the criminal's reform performance during his sentence, not on the original sentence. According to the current law, the reform of criminals is carried out by the prison, and the prison authorities are in direct contact with the daily life and reform of criminals, so they know the degree of reform and repentance of criminals best. However, the prison only has the right to declare commutation, but has no right to decide commutation. The people's court executes the right to decide commutation, and basically does not understand the actual situation. The people's courts have no direct contact with criminals whose sentences have been reduced, and they do not understand the reform of criminals. Instead, it passively accepts the written materials submitted by the prison to form a collegiate panel for trial, and only reviews the commutation proposal in written form, neither interrogating the criminals nor conducting substantive review. The court did not understand and combine the actual performance and specific situation of criminals in prison, which affected the judgment of whether criminals had "true repentance or meritorious service" or "significant meritorious service".
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Legal basis:
Article 79 of the Criminal Law, the executing organ shall make recommendations to the people's court at or above the intermediate level to reduce the sentence of a criminal. When trying a case, the people's court shall form a collegial panel, and if there are facts of repentance or meritorious service, it shall make a ruling to reduce the sentence. Without legal procedures, the sentence may not be reduced. Article 80 A term commuted from life imprisonment to fixed-term imprisonment shall be counted from the date of commutation.