Chinese Lawyers Play Key Role in Criminal ProcedureWhile Chinese lawyers are taking a deeper and broader participation in criminal procedures and the number of criminal cases they defended and handled on a commission basis is rising on an annual basis, these lawyers are playing an increasingly important role in criminal procedures.Statistics show that from 1997 to 1999, Chinese lawyers had defended and handled on a commission basis a total of 881,000 cases in criminal procedures, these are broken up as follows: 275,000 cases in 1997; 296,000 in 1998; and 309,000 in 1999, respective increases being 9.6 percent, 7.8 percent and 4.4 percent over the previous year. Besides, during the three years, lawyers offered legal aid to criminal suspects in 166,000 criminal cases at the investigation stage and handled nearly 210,000 cases of legal aid. |
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