The Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Sunday China's courts only handed out death sentences to an extremely small number of criminals for extremely severe offenses in the past ten years.

In a work report to be delivered by Chief Justice Zhou Qiang at a plenary meeting of the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, the SPC said the capital punishment had been strictly controlled and applied prudently since 2007, when the SPC reserved the right to review all death penalty decisions handed out by lower courts.

The report did not give an exact number of cases where death sentences had been applied.

It said courts had strengthened efforts to protect human rights in judicial practices.