Abstract：At present, the unconstitutionality of death penalty is mainly approached from the viewpoint of the right to life, but since the dispute whether “the right to life is absolute or relative” is unsettled, plus connotation and extension of the concept of the “right to life” are very difficult to define, it is very difficult to argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the deprivation of the right to life. It is better to argue from another angle, like its violation of equality rights and human dignity. In China, the application and enforcement of the death penalty is tinted with apparent violations of constitutional equality principle, such as foreign fugitive being able to commitment to eliminating the death penalty, Hong Kong and Macao residents being from death penalty, minorities being able escape death by paying "cost of life" according to local customs, execution alternating between injection and shooting. The inequality of death penalty will shake the belief of equality to the right to life and equality as defined by the criminal law. So it is recommended that South Africa, whose Constitution abolished death penalty, be taken as international precedent to promote the abolition of death penalty.
刘春花, 范国强. 死刑违宪新论
——以宪法上的平等权为视角[J]. 江苏大学学报（社会科学版）, 2014, 16(1): 86-92.
LIU Chun-Hua, FAN Guo-Qiang. A New Argument on the Death Penalty Unconstitutional——From the Perspective of Equal Right Defined by Constitution. Journal of Jiangsu University（Social Science Editi, 2014, 16(1): 86-92.
2014, Vol. 16 
