And many times, among the three, the public security is the boss, because the local leaders of the public security are often the leaders of the Political and Legal Committee. The police spent a lot of money to solve the case. He thinks Zhao is the murderer. If it is not obviously out of line, the procuratorate will not dare to say anything, and even the court will listen to them.
The root cause is: a Du Cai.
The following is an article in China Human Rights Biweekly.
Interrogating China's judicial system from the unjust cases of She Xianglin and Zhao Zuohai.
Zhengqing Liu
In recent years, Du Fu, She Xianglin, Nie Shubin, Hugue Gilletu and others have been exposed one after another. The "resurrection" of the victim and the arrest of the real murderer exposed some unfair cases. However, some of these unjust owners have been shot and some have been in prison for more than ten years.
In fact, these murders are not complicated. Although it is difficult to find the real murderer, it is easy to rule out those who do bad things. There are no technical difficulties and there is no need to extort a confession by torture to finalize the case. Didn't the police lock the victim Kang Juhua and the "4 9" female corpse who were raped and killed by Nie Shubin and Hugue Gilletu respectively? The police also separately presented the semen in their bodies. Isn't this good evidence? Comparing the extracted semen with the DNA of Nie Shubin and Hugue Gilletu, we can't determine the real murderer, but at least we can rule out their suspicion of rape and murder. The police identified Zhang Zaiyu as killed by She Xianglin and Tyrone Shang as killed by Zhao Zuohai. However, Zhang Zaiyu's daughter, parents and brothers are all here. Tyrone's brothers are all here, so we can compare and identify the two dead people with relatives of Zhang and Zhao. Although the identity of the deceased cannot be determined, it can be ruled out that the deceased are Zhang Zaiyu and Tyrone. Since the identity of the "victim" has been ruled out, the suspects locked by the public security according to the identity of the "victim" should also be ruled out of crime. Don't the police understand such a simple truth? No way! Even if the public security is at fault, are the procuratorate, the court of first instance, the court of second instance and the Supreme Court's death penalty review all playing with the procedure? This is a life-threatening murder! In a country with a sound legal system and an independent judiciary, it is impossible for it to pass every step of these judicial procedures. To this end, I have to question: Is there something wrong with our judicial system?
China's Criminal Procedure Law clearly stipulates that public security, public prosecution and law should restrict each other. Its system design is as follows: the public security exercises investigation power, the procuratorate exercises procuratorial power and legal supervision over public security investigation activities and court trial activities, and the court exercises judicial power. Within the court system, the higher court exercises supervision over the lower court. The purpose of designing this system is to avoid the abuse of public power and prevent the occurrence of misjudged cases through checks at different levels. Objectively speaking, the higher the level, the more detached, the less involved in the case, the more objective and fair. In fact, in China's judicial system, the secretary of the Political and Legal Committee has become the emperor of the public security law, and the procuratorate and the court exist in name only.
In the current power structure of our country, although the law stipulates that they are independent departments and restrict each other, this is only a piece of paper. In fact, they are a family, just different departments under the China Political and Legal Committee. Not to mention Huihe-they are not afraid to offend individual customers (wrongdoers), but they will never risk offending this bureaucratic machine and his colleagues. Therefore, as long as there is a problem with the source of public security, it is followed by mistakes. Moreover, in order to cover up small mistakes, we must cover up big mistakes. This vicious circle is common in China's judicial practice. Take She Xianglin as an example. At the beginning, the prosecutor and the law were not ignorant of the problems in the case! At the first trial, three villagers issued a written "certificate" to prove that Zhang Zaiyu, the "victim" of the She case, was taken in. These three villagers are neither villagers nor strangers, and they are all third people who have nothing to do with her interests. However, the court of first instance not only refused to admit the evidence, but arrested and sentenced the three villagers for perjury. His mother not only failed to appeal for her, but was imprisoned for nine months and then died of depression. The Jingmen Intermediate People's Court was forced by the Jingmen Municipal Law Committee to sentence Xie to death in an attempt to kick the ball to the Provincial High Court. However, the Hubei Provincial High Court avoided contradictions and used the remand system stipulated by law to kick the ball back to the court of first instance.
However, because the judicial system in China is not truly independent, the supervised actually controls the supervisor. In this way, it is difficult to stop the evil consequences of police extorting confessions by torture. In the specific operation, even if the procuratorate and the court want to block it, it can't be blocked. The only feasible way is to use the return to supplement the investigation, send it back for retrial, and then put forward judicial suggestions internally, hoping that they can digest it internally. However, in the face of unrestricted power, who will correct themselves? Besides, solving the murder case is a great achievement and a rising political capital. Isn't there a political and legal Committee above the public, procuratorial and legal departments? But China from the central to local politics and law committee, which one is not the head of public security. If I don't prosecute or sentence, I'll hand it over to the Political and Legal Committee for ruling, but the procurator-general and the president of the court should also accept the leadership of the party and listen to the secretary! Who dares not tell the secretary when he speaks? Who dares not to sentence? Anyway, the responsibility is borne by the organization. Take the Zhao case as an example. In all fairness, Shangqiu City Procuratorate has done some blocking work at the legal professional level. First, by giving the public security a step, it will be returned to the public security for supplementary investigation. In the case that the public security insisted on prosecution, the procuratorate also made it clear that the case did not meet the standards and requirements of prosecution in terms of evidence. However, as soon as the police handed the case to the Political and Legal Committee and the secretary spoke, the procuratorate would prosecute and the court would sentence him, leaving only Zhao Yi with an open hand when sentencing.
Let's take a look at the judicial drawbacks of the procedures of "returning supplementary investigation" and "remanding for retrial". The legislative intention of returning supplementary investigation is that after the public security put forward the prosecution opinion to the procuratorial organ, the procuratorial organ thinks that there are still facts that have not been ascertained or the evidence can not meet the prosecution requirements at all, so it will return to the public security for supplementary investigation or self-examination However, this procedure has been abused by the procuratorate and has become a legal barrier for them to avoid the balance of contradictions and public security relations. So it's no use dropping the charges knowing that the evidence is insufficient. The case should be dismissed according to law and returned to the supplementary investigation indiscriminately, so that the public security can withdraw the case on its own. But the police just don't appreciate it and can't make up new evidence. They also demanded prosecution, so no way back, the procuratorate, had to bite the bullet and sue. If the court wants to consider the relationship between the public and the procuratorate, it must be sentenced accordingly, but the sentence will be lighter. In the procedure of criminal second instance, if the superior court thinks that "the facts are unclear and the evidence is insufficient", it can either revoke the original judgment and send it back for retrial, or revise the judgment after finding out the facts. However, in terms of legislative intent, remanding for retrial should be a special case. The design of this system has also been abused by high courts and procuratorates. As the spokesman of Hubei Higher People's Court said in response to She Xianglin's case, "In handling the case, I resisted the pressure of the relatives of the deceased to petition and 220 people to sign the book. Because the relationship between the cases is complex and the contradictions are sharp, there are many external interferences. " . So the judge of second instance was unwilling to let the case be concluded in his own hands and decided to send it back for retrial to avoid contradictions. Jingmen City Political and Legal Committee can naturally understand the intention of the Provincial High Court, and in order to solve it on the spot, it circumvents this procedure of the Provincial High Court. The case was directly transferred to the jingshan county Procuratorate for prosecution for "violation of the provisions on case-level jurisdiction" and was tried by the grass-roots court-jingshan county Court. In this way, the Jingmen Intermediate People's Court, which was originally the first instance, became the court of final appeal, and there was no second instance of the High Court. In this way, the result of her appeal can be imagined. Playing the program like this can really be described as playing to the extreme, but the rights of citizens and the spirit of the legal system are gone, and the credibility of the court is gone.
With the "resurrection" of She Xianglin, Zhao Zuohai and other victims, the media was in an uproar and the people were indignant. To this end, the fastest response is the Political and Legal Committee. As soon as the She case was exposed, the Hubei Provincial Political and Legal Committee immediately made a high-profile statement to the media: those responsible must be investigated and will not be tolerated; As soon as the Zhao case came out, Wang Jianmin, secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of Shangqiu Municipal Committee of Henan Province, immediately told the media: This is a shame for the political and legal organs, and those involved should be held accountable. However, this time, Shangqiu City Procuratorate also declared to the media mercilessly: "The biggest mistake of our procuratorate is that it did not insist on its own opinions." —— (See an interview with Southern Metropolis Daily and a report by Wang, the chief procurator of Shangqiu City Procuratorate).
In recent years, several heavyweight legal scholars have been clamoring for judicial independence and illegal intervention by the Political and Legal Committee. Considering this background and the attitude of the Political and Legal Committee towards these unjust cases, I have every reason to believe that the move of the Political and Legal Committee is just a publicity stunt of the media in an attempt to clear the responsibility. Its sincerity has to be questioned.
Investigate the responsibility of relevant personnel? ! Who will pursue it? Who was involved? Did the police extort a confession by torture? Or the prosecutor in charge of prosecution? Or the judge in charge of hearing the case? Or the politics and law Committee or the judicial system itself? Let the politics and law Committee investigate, but can the politics and law Committee escape these unjust cases? In the process of making these unjust cases, which one is not the hand of the Political and Legal Committee? Can it correct itself? According to the report of Southern Metropolis Daily quoted by Beijing News on May 13, Wang Shican, secretary of the Political and Legal Committee who presided over the case and now retired and moved to the United States, boasted: "I can't remember the case in those years, and I can't find the minutes of the meeting in those years. I have never studied law and I don't know the law, but I studied mechanical and electrical engineering in coal mines. " What a "can't remember"! You know you don't know the law, why are you lazy in the position of politics and law Committee? ! This is a life-threatening case!
As soon as the real murderer of Nie Shubin's "rape and murder" case came out, the Hebei Provincial Political and Legal Committee vowed to quickly find out the truth of Nie's case and promised the people of the whole country to "guide" public opinion through the media. Although a famous professor like He Weifang is shouting, five years later, there is still no result. Is the truth so hard to find? Isn't this a question of whether Nie Shubin is the murderer? The two must be one of them. Today, five years later, the Hebei Provincial Political and Legal Committee should have a result to explain to the people of the whole country! It is rumored that the case involves a senior official. At the beginning, the Hebei Provincial High Court had already discovered the doubtful points of the case, and according to the rule of lighter case, he should be sentenced to a suspended execution. However, this senior official suffers from uremia and urgently needs a kidney transplant. When screening organ donors on death row, it was found that Nie's tissue matching was consistent with that of this senior official, and he was instructed to be sentenced to death, so now the official is afraid to announce it. Presumably, the Hebei Provincial Political and Legal Committee will not be unaware of this rumor. From the perspective of clarifying the facts and eliminating rumors, the authorities should also make the truth public and let the people dispel their doubts.
As soon as the case came out, Pan Yujun, a policeman involved in the case, hanged himself in huangpi district. Before committing suicide, I wrote my last words on a tombstone with blood, which even caused public security panic. In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with investigating the legal responsibility of extorting a confession by torture, because he is the producer of the source of the unjust case. I believe that the Political and Legal Committee only put pressure on the police handling the case, so that the murder case must be solved. No one dares to extort a confession by torture, but it is unfair to put all the subsequent results of this source on him. As for the Zhao case, several judges in charge of hearing the case were suspended from investigation, but they were just looking for scapegoats. Although we can blame them from the moral level, from the legal level, the judge who signed the verdict is only a puppet at the front desk. They can neither judge cases independently nor violate the will of the political and legal Committee.
At all times and in all countries, extorting confessions by torture is not terrible. The west calls it "the fruit of the poisonous tree", and the exclusionary rule of illegal evidence ends at the source. When Yan Fu visited Britain to inspect the British political system, he often attended the London Circuit Court. As a result, he was surprised to find that the strength of Britain is not only the strength of a ship, but also a perfect legal system to correct mistakes and solve social contradictions. However, our system has the power to turn decay into magic, and any funeral can be promoted as a happy event. When the Zhao Zuohai case came out, several judges were dealt with and Zhao was compensated. The Supreme Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Justice immediately promulgated the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Examination and Judgment of Evidence in Handling Death Penalty Cases and the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in Handling Criminal Cases. People's Daily Online, Xinhuanet and other official propaganda machines publicized in a high-profile way that "Zhao Zuohai bowed deeply after he regained his reason, thanking the party and the government, especially the education and care for the prison for many years." ; How wise and great the Party and government are, they dare to face up to mistakes, correct them and take timely measures to prevent similar mistakes. Yun Yun. As an official propaganda machine, how dare you do such propaganda? I believe it is not surprising that Zhao Zuohai, as an honest farmer, said these words in a hurry just after he was released from prison under the "warm reception" and appeasement of government officials. Is it necessary to use it for publicity? Can it achieve the effect of publicity?
The exclusion of illegal evidence in three newly promulgated death penalty cases is nothing new and is not worth advocating. Prior to this, the criminal procedure law and the judicial interpretation of the two houses have made detailed provisions on the exclusionary rules of illegal evidence. Didn't they also stop these "fruits of poisonous trees"? Mencius said long ago: "Law is not enough to stand on its own feet". Without changing China's judicial system and judicial concept, no amount of laws will be more than a decoration.
Sincerely looking for the shortcomings of the judicial system and finding a few scapegoats can of course temporarily calm people's grievances; Starting the propaganda machine and making the funeral a happy event can of course "guide" public opinion. But this can neither fundamentally solve the problem nor help the progress of society. If a wronged citizen can only be cured by the "resurrection" of the victim or the appearance of the real murderer through the exposure of the media, it is really sad for the law; If we don't reflect on these problems in the criminal justice system today, then Zhao Zuohai is by no means the last one. The fate of Du, She Xianglin, Nie Shubin may come to you, me and him at any time.