Challenges brought by the reconstruction of criminal summary procedure to procuratorial organs
Punishing crimes and protecting human rights are the guiding concepts of the whole criminal procedure design. In the reconstruction of summary procedure, from the applicable conditions of summary procedure to the adjustment of trial organization, to the support of public prosecution appearing in court, to the confirmation procedure of summary procedure, and even to the extension of trial time, the concept of judicial prudence and respect for the protection of human rights is reflected. In judicial practice, after the procuratorial organ submits a case to the court, how to try and how to make a judgment is completely handled by the court, and the court also plays the role of accusation, trial and even defense. This revision of summary procedure has obviously noticed this problem, further standardized summary procedure from the system and added procedural provisions for human rights protection. Further establish a new concept of the unity of punishing crimes and safeguarding human rights, and the coordination of judicial efficiency and judicial justice.
Intensifying the work is the biggest challenge to the procuratorial work brought by the revision of this summary procedure. After the revision of the Criminal Procedure Law, the workload of procuratorial organs will only increase by 45%, even higher in some places. In addition, in terms of the content of the court's support for public prosecution, this revision not only strengthens the lawyer's defense function, but also increases the proof of the legality of evidence, the contents of the investigation and debate in the sentencing court, and the cross-examination brought by the appearance of witnesses, especially expert witnesses, which greatly enhances the antagonism of the trial and further increases the intensity of accusation and confirmation of crimes. The above-mentioned increase in the number of people appearing in court and the strengthening of the quality of trials have undoubtedly brought great challenges to the public prosecution work compared with the current situation that there are fewer cases and the personnel in the public prosecution department are still not optimistic.
Innovative ways and means to deal with the reconstruction of criminal summary procedure
Innovating the mechanism of handling cases and implementing the diversion of complexity and simplification In view of the provisions of the new criminal procedure law on summary procedure, we can try to set up a case-handling team composed of prosecutors and clerks to handle summary procedure cases. Cases transferred for examination and prosecution shall be preliminarily examined by the person in charge of the public prosecution department, and cases that may be subject to summary procedure shall be transferred to the case handling group according to the principle of simplifying and diverting. Regularly rotate the team's case handlers, so that every prosecutor can be exposed to such cases and enhance the prosecutor's case handling ability.
Centralized and unified handling is often relatively simple to improve work efficiency, especially for cases that may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than three years, we can explore the working mechanism of centralized filing review and centralized trial, effectively use the time of handling cases and improve work efficiency. A joint meeting can be held to strengthen communication and coordination with the investigation organs and courts, and strive for the understanding and support of relevant units. For criminal cases that meet the applicable summary procedures, the rapid handling mechanism of centralized transfer by the investigation organs, centralized examination by the procuratorial organs and centralized trial by the judicial organs can be realized as much as possible. On the one hand, it is more in line with the idea of setting up summary procedure, on the other hand, it is also to solve the problem of centralized handling due to different investigation progress, different review and prosecution progress and different trial progress.
Innovate trial methods and improve trial efficiency. As far as the ways and means of trial are concerned, we can actively communicate with the court and simplify the trial procedure. For example, the judge will ask the defendant if he has any objection to the accusation. If there is no objection, he will not be questioned, but the prosecutor will provide evidence. If there is any objection, ask what the objection is, and then the prosecutor will interrogate the facts related to the objection. If the circumstances of the defendant's objection do not affect the conviction and sentencing, the collegial panel may directly request the public prosecutor to produce evidence according to the circumstances of the case and stop interrogating the defendant. Simplify the presentation and cross-examination. In the stage of presentation and cross-examination, the public prosecutor provides evidence to the court in groups according to the fact that the constitutive elements of the crime have affected the conviction and sentencing, focusing on the purpose of proof.
For cases that apply summary procedure, strictly controlling the review and supervision of the referee will not only improve the litigation efficiency, but also mean that the defendant's ability to protect rights and interests is weak to some extent, so it is more necessary to strengthen legal supervision in summary procedure. As far as the review and supervision of the judgment of a case applying summary procedure is concerned, after receiving the judgment and ruling of the people's court, the prosecutor of the public prosecution department often pays more attention to the substantive contents such as whether the facts or evidence determined by the court are wrong, whether the applicable law is correct, and whether the qualitative sentencing is appropriate. However, there is not enough review on the legality of the court's application procedure, which is precisely the part that is most prone to problems but easily overlooked in the application of summary procedure. Therefore, the public prosecution department of the procuratorate should pay special attention to and strictly control the work in the future. For the referee who is really wrong and meets the conditions for protest, he must resolutely protest according to law. Although the people's procuratorate does not send personnel to appear in court in cases of private prosecution that are tried by summary procedure, it should supervise the judgments and rulings made by the people's courts from both substantive and procedural aspects according to law. If the judgment or ruling is indeed wrong, it should also be unambiguously put forward for a second trial or retrial according to law. (Tongbai County Procuratorate Xia Yaozhong AARON Li Hu Chengsheng) Author: Tongbai County Procuratorate Xia Yaozhong AARON Li Hu Chengsheng