Only genuine repentance deserves leniency

CAO WENZHUANG, a former director of the State Food and Drug Administration's drug registration department, who in 2007 was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for taking bribes and dereliction of duty, reportedly had his sentence commuted to 14 years and three months in prison, after he turned in about 1.15 million yuan ($174,904) of illicit gains after eight years in prison. Rednet.cn questions whether convicted officials should be able to purchase lighter sentences in this way.

True, Cao is entitled to a reduced penalty as long as he is deemed to have fully confessed his crime. But his belated handing over of a large amount of illicit money, which took him eight years to decide to do, does not justify the latest commuting of his sentence.

That, to some extent, indicates that he might have intentionally refrained from admitting some of his criminal activities in the first place, which goes against the country's basic judicial spirit that "only those who genuinely confess deserve leniency, and those who resist shall face harsher punishments".