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Court reform targets more justice: 2369 defendants declared not guilty by Chinese courts over three years

By Xu Jun (People's Daily Online)    22:51, March 12, 2016

According to NPC deputies and CPPCC members, the experience at grassroots level shows that human right protection in the judicial process has improved significantly in China.

The legal rights of defendants, detainees, and criminals are becoming better protected in China. "Video recording from the very beginning of a suspect’s trial is now a requirement,” said Zhou Junjun, an NPC deputy and Public Security Bureau official from Ruichang, a city in Jiangxi Province. This is an effective means to prevent any kind of torture.” Legal aid agencies have been set up in more than 1700 detention centers across China. Prison health care is also being provided in a more professional way, so that sick detainees can receive timely and effective treatment.

On March 13, the heads of Chinese Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate will each report to the NPC on their work over the last year. According to NPC deputies and members of CPPCC from the court and procuratorate systems, in recent years Chinese judicial organs at all levels have further promoted justice and transparency and actively implemented many judicial reforms. In so doing, trials have become fairer, and human rights protections during the judicial process have significantly improved.

Starting in February 2015, all criminal defendants and appellants began to appear at trial in civilian clothes, rather than in standardized uniforms provided by the courts; they also generally do not appear handcuffed. The goal is to emphasize the presumption of innocence and reflect modern judicial practices. The Supreme People's Court also issued regulations allowing defense lawyers to present opinions directly to Supreme Court judges in death penalty review cases.

As an example of effective protection of the rights of the innocent, from 2013 to 2015, Chinese courts at all levels legally declared 2369 defendants not guilty. In one case, following a retrial the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Higher People's Court officially cleared a prisoner, named Huugjilt, of rape and murder charges for which he had been convicted two decades prior.

China provides compensation to those who are wrongly convicted or arrested . According to Li Shaoping, vice president of the Supreme Court, since 2014 the courts at all levels have dealt with 10,881 compensation claims, and provided 113 million yuan (US$17 million) to the wrongly convicted. In addition, in 2015 the courts paid out 850 million yuan (US$130.85 million) in 41,823 other judicial aid cases — the recipients here were victims of criminal or civil cases who had been unable to obtain effective recourse, and who have been experiencing hardship as a result.

Authorities also covered litigation fees of 255 million yuan (US$ 39.25 million).

To further increase judicial transparency, China’s Supreme Court has launched specialized websites allowing the public to follow the trial process, the court’s verdict, and implementation of the ruling. Through the end of 2015, nearly 3,500 courts have used the sites to share 14.5 million documents related to verdicts – total page views are now over 410 million. Li Dajin, a NPC delegate and lawyer in Beijing, suggests the system may be the largest digital database for court verdicts in the world.

The excluding of illegal evidence is also being carried out more strictly. Judicial authorities are rejecting confessions, testimony, and victim’s statement extorted by torture or intimidation, and also throwing out physical and documentary evidence collected through illegal procedures, as well as evidence lacking reasonable explanation. A NPC delegate recounted how a county procuratorate in his home province of Hebei decided not to arrest an alleged killer as doubts emerged about the quality of the evidence. Following the procuratorate’s decision to reopen the case, the local police was able to seize the actual culprit.

To those inside China’s legal profession, the current legal system reforms count as unprecedented.The Supreme Court for example has bolstered the filing registration system by establishing two circuit courts – these courts effectively prevent local interference in cases where courts and procuratorates are operating across administrative jurisdictions. In another reform, the Standing Committee of the NPC amended the Administrative Procedure Law to expand the courts’ ability to hear cases where citizens sue the government for abuse of administrative power – including cases of eliminating or limiting competition, illegal collection of funds or charging of fees, or the improper handling of pensions, social security or other welfare payments. “These changes are visible, and simple and clear aim is to deliver justice and protect human rights,” said Tang Jianwei, a CPPCC member and professor of law at the Renmin University of China.

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Editor:任建民,Wu Chengliang)

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