China News Service, Beijing, November 4th. Title: The draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law is submitted for first review. Experts interpret the highlights of the draft.
Reporter Xie Yanbing
The Criminal Procedure Law, known as the "mini-constitution", will undergo its fourth revision. On November 2, the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law was submitted to the 25th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress for initial review.
Criminal procedure is a state activity that involves the relationship between the state and citizens. Almost the political rights, personal rights and property rights of citizens stipulated in the Constitution are involved in criminal proceedings. For this reason, the Criminal Procedure Law is known as the "mini-constitution".
The Criminal Procedure Law is the basic law that regulates criminal litigation activities. It was passed in July 1979. It was relatively comprehensively revised twice in 1996 and 2012, and some modifications were made in 2018. Facing the new situation, this legal revision has attracted much attention.
Why practice law?
"Revising the Criminal Procedure Law is an urgent need to promote the construction of the criminal rule of law and serve the construction of a powerful modern socialist country." Shen Chunyao, director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, pointed out in his explanation of the draft amendment that China's current criminal crime situation has undergone profound changes. The number of serious violent crimes and severe punishment rates have continued to decline for many years, the number of petty crimes has continued to rise, and property crimes have gradually increased. This has raised new issues of the times for building a higher-level safe China and a China governed by law.
Chen Weidong, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, said that amending the Criminal Procedure Law is a manifestation of adhering to fair justice. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's judicial practice in criminal proceedings has continued to make new progress, and the reform of the judicial system has continued to achieve new results. A number of unjust cases have been corrected in accordance with the law. The concept of fair justice has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. It is necessary to sum up experience in a timely manner and fix it through legal norms. At the same time, some problems that seriously impede judicial fairness have also been exposed in practice, and it is necessary to plug loopholes in the system and strengthen supervision and restrictions.
"Amending the Criminal Procedure Law is conducive to improving the judicial system and mechanism of fair law enforcement and allowing the people to feel fairness and justice in every judicial case." said Xiong Qiuhong, a professor at the Institute of Procedural Law of China University of Political Science and Law.
Improve physical coercion measures
There are 55 articles in the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law submitted for review this time. One of the main contents is to improve physical coercion measures.
Personal coercive measures are related to citizens’ personal freedom. The draft focuses on outstanding issues in judicial practice, and clearly states that compulsory measures are adopted to ensure the normal conduct of litigation activities, insisting that they are truly necessary and consistent with the social dangers of criminal suspects and defendants, the nature and circumstances of the case, etc.
At the same time, the draft clarifies the positioning of residential surveillance as an alternative measure to reduce detention. For criminal suspects and defendants who have no fixed residence, the public security organs will no longer designate a place for residential surveillance, but will take other compulsory measures in accordance with the law.
"The modification of this clause has strong practical significance." Chen Weidong said that there are some chaos in judicial practice at present. Modifying this clause will help further standardize the operation of judicial power and improve judicial credibility.
The draft also improves the detention system to prevent extended detention. It adds a provision that if the detention period is about to exceed the possible sentence, he should be released or the compulsory measures should be changed.
Xiong Qiuhong said that improving the detention system will help reduce the detention rate, truly free criminal suspects who should not and do not need to be detained from the pain of detention, and reduce the phenomenon of extended detention in practice.
Strengthen protection of victims’ rights
The protection of victims' rights is of great significance in mitigating the harm suffered by victims due to crimes, maintaining fairness and justice, and maintaining social harmony and stability.
"Previous revisions to the Criminal Procedure Law emphasized respect for the basic rights and personal dignity that criminal suspects and defendants should enjoy as 'people'. This revision also emphasizes the state's respect for and protection of the rights and interests of victims." Xiong Qiuhong said.
The draft adds provisions that if the victim, his legal representative or close relatives, etc., do not retain a litigation agent due to specific reasons, they may apply for legal aid in accordance with the law.
The draft also stipulates the issue of evidence collection for cases handled only after the victim files a complaint, clarifying that if the victim complains to the People's Court, but it is really difficult to provide evidence, the People's Court may request the public security organs to provide assistance.
Chen Weidong said that such cases are private prosecution cases, and the victims themselves report to the court. However, the victim's ability to collect evidence is naturally limited, and there may be insufficient evidence. However, it is inconvenient for the court to investigate and collect evidence in person. Legislation stipulates the obligation of public security organs to provide assistance, which is conducive to better protecting the legitimate rights and interests of victims.
This revision of the law also further strengthens and improves the protection of minors' rights and interests. The draft adds provisions on the principles and requirements for questioning minor victims and witnesses, including paying attention to the protection of privacy, reputation and other legitimate rights and interests, and trying to complete it in one go to avoid unnecessary harm caused by repeated questioning.
"The harm caused to minor victims by repeated questioning is a long-standing prominent issue in judicial practice." Xiong Qiuhong said that minors are relatively fragile physically and mentally. The draft adds provisions to transform the concept of avoiding secondary harm into a procedural obligation, requiring the case handling agency to conduct more thorough plan design before questioning to better protect minor victims.
