Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Monday that China will not abolish death penalty due to consideration of its own national conditions though the government is pressing ahead the judicial reform.

The Premier confirmed that measures are being taken to reform the country's judicial system including the possible callback of the power to approve death penalty to the Supreme People's Court.

However, based on China's "national conditions", it is impossible for China to rescind the sentence term, said Wen, citing the fact that half of the nations worldwide still adopt the death penalty to support his comment.

The Premier also vowed to improve judicial mechanism to ensure "death penalty to be given carefully and fairly".

He made the remarks at a press conference with more than 700 Chinese and foreign journalists who covered the just-concluded annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

Backgrounder: Death penalty in China

China's existing laws dictate that all death penalty ruling, given by local intermediate people's courts or above, should be submitted to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) for approval, but in cases involving violent crimes like murder, rape and robbery, provincial higher courts are entitled to approve executions.

The Organic Law of the People's Court of China, a law that allows lower courts to have the execution approval right, was promulgated in 1983 when intensified efforts were made to crack down on rampant crimes.

But the situation is very different from what it was 20 years ago, and the SPC has been studying how to revoke the approval right of executions from lower courts, after its top officials repeatedly revealed last year that the reform should be carried out when it is appropriate.

Earlier reports said that large proportions of death penalty cases are approved by provincial courts and only those high-profile cases are submitted to the Supreme People's Court.

Experts consider that people will feel safer of the death penalty system after the approval right is reserved to the supreme court, since there will be only one set of standard for capital punishment.

Currently, people who commit similar crimes may be put to death in some provinces but kept alive in others due to varied court standards, some experts argue.

It is believed that if the SPC has the last say on executions, miscarriages of justice can be largely prevented and halted.