Reflections on studying how to prevent unjust, false and wrong cases

Lawyer Li Fazhi and the Supreme People's Court Executive Vice President Shen Deyong recently wrote "How should we prevent unjust, false and wrong cases". He got to know it in private and felt a lot. He made a brief summary and published it as follows, which is worth his experience. How many major unjust, false and wrong cases have not surfaced? How many minor criminal mistakes have not been corrected by us? This is a question that all legal persons should ponder deeply! As far as all criminal cases are concerned, what is the misjudged rate of those relatively complicated cases, except for obvious and simple cases that basically do not need to be investigated (such as ordinary injuries, picking troubles, destroying property, etc.)? )? No one can answer this question! In the past 30 years, many times, in the face of the negative impact of error correction, we always take evasive measures. Now, a series of serious criminal unjust, false and misjudged cases have appeared one after another, forcing people to face the current criminal justice system. Wrongful and false cases will not only let criminals get away with it, but more importantly, it will hurt law-abiding citizens physically and mentally. The authority of the law has been established in every case. If a case cannot be solved, it will only make people accuse the efficiency of the judicial department, and the occurrence of unjust, false and wrong cases will make people question their legal beliefs; Among the ten more complicated criminal cases, the social impact caused by the correct detection of one case is enough to deter the criminals in the other nine cases and make people fear the law; In one hundred cases, except for simple and obvious cases, in those complicated cases, as long as there is one unjust, false and wrong case, its negative impact is enough to obliterate the positive impact of the other 99 cases. If we deny the above truth, then we would rather believe in morality, because even if there is no existing law, relying on moral standards and the past model of county government handling cases can probably guarantee the above ratio. At present, we regard criminals as enemies and judicial actions as similar struggles against the enemy, which confuses the differences between criminals, enemies and bad guys, equates scientific actions of criminal judicial activities with political actions similar to revolutionary movements, and regards the detection rate, arrest rate, prosecution rate and conviction rate as political achievements. We don't understand that every complicated criminal case has different characteristics. I don't know that solving a complicated criminal case is more difficult than solving a hundred simple cases. I don't know the law that criminal cases must escape the net. I think the law is omnipotent, and the public prosecution law must be integrated, ignoring the scientific procedures that restrict each other, resulting in the present situation of mutual accommodation between the public prosecution law and the public prosecution law. This is a hotbed where unjust, false and misjudged cases will inevitably occur. Many times, in the face of unjust, false and wrong cases, almost all defense lawyers have made correct defense, not that the trial judge did not realize it, but that the trial judge was powerless. The realistic procedure is that almost every criminal case has to go through several links: public security investigation, prosecution and court trial. As the last link, if the court that opens the case to the whole society still makes a wrong judgment in the face of reasonable doubts, even if it has made a relatively light judgment, there is nothing to speak of, just pot calling the kettle black! Once the dust settles, even if it is corrected later, it is still a unjust, false and wrong case, and any explanation is powerless except that the victim of the unjust case gets proper compensation. To prevent the occurrence of unjust, false and misjudged cases, we should recognize the following problems: First, strengthen the concept of judicial power and abandon it. Article 2 of the Constitution stipulates that all power of the people and the state of China belongs to the people. The manifestation of people's power is the specific provisions of the law, and the essence of people's power is the enforcement of the law. Judicial organs and their staff are not organs of state power, and the basis of legal acts should be the rights and obligations entrusted by the Constitution and laws, not their own power. The judicial behavior of the judiciary is also relative. On the one hand, it shows that judicial organs should exercise their rights in accordance with the authority prescribed by law, such as jurisdiction according to law, investigation and evidence collection, and public trial. On the other hand, it shows that criminals' rights of statement, defense and human rights must be respected. Judicial power is ultimately implemented through specific judicial staff. If the judicial staff expand their rights in their positions on the one hand, but on the other hand, they don't realize the rights entrusted to the defendant by law, or even don't understand the defendant's minimum human rights, then this judicial power will inevitably be alienated into the absolute power in the hands of individuals themselves. Second, fully understand that the purpose of criminal law is to "punish crimes" rather than "punish bad guys". "Punishing crimes" stipulated in Article 1 of the Criminal Law is not "punishing bad guys". On the one hand, crime is a legal concept, on the other hand, crime refers to acts that violate criminal law. Based on the provisions of the criminal law, the purpose of sentencing is only to make criminals bear corresponding criminal responsibilities for their criminal acts, and to achieve corresponding social guidance and prevention with their guilty results. Criminal law does not punish all acts of criminals, and legal trial cannot be integrated with moral and ideological trial. Criminals are just people who bear criminal responsibility. The process of criminal trial is only to convict and sentence him, but to judge the defendant as a possible "criminal", not as a "bad guy". Don't confuse the two different concepts of criminals and bad people. People will judge a person according to other standards. Moreover, different people often make opposite comments on the same object, which is not the object of criminal law norms. Even if a criminal is a good person or a bad person, different people often make diametrically opposite evaluations, such as negligent crimes, perpetrators of passionate crimes and so on. Making criminal trial a mixture of legal trial and other trials is the task of expanding criminal law without foundation. In a word, unconsciously, the criminal trial has gone beyond the limits given to him by law and gone to the opposite side, which is both wrong and illegal. Third, respect the law and act in accordance with the law. We should respect procedural rights and obligations. If we compare substantive justice to a precise microscope, procedural justice is the operation steps and procedures of this instrument. A little confusion in operation steps and procedures will greatly reduce the accuracy of this microscope, and even lead to blurred or even wrong results. If you don't pay attention to the procedure, you can say without hesitation that even if there is no law and only common sense, the rate of misjudged cases will not be high. Criminal judicial behavior is not a political movement, let alone a revolutionary movement, because revolutionaries can adopt various strategies and wit in specific tasks, such as sneak attack and fraud, just like on the battlefield, as long as they attack the enemy. Handling criminal cases is a legal act, which must be carried out in public in accordance with legal procedures, so as to ensure fairness and justice. The judgment shall be made according to the legal facts proved by the evidence. Judicial behavior itself is a scientific behavior carried out according to law. The substantive basis of this scientific behavior is only evidence. When the evidence can prove a person guilty, he is convicted, and vice versa. The judge is indeed carrying out orders, but not from people, but from the law. Limited by the cognitive defects of human beings and society itself, law is not omnipotent. In the case that the evidence cannot be proved, it is better to misplace it than to misjudge it. Undoubtedly, when the evidence cannot be proved, dislocation and misjudgment will affect social justice, but dislocation will not affect the credibility of the law, while misjudgment will affect the credibility of the law. Just like a theory, if it can't be proved to be true, it's better to give up for a while. Fourth, there is no restriction on the defense rights of defense lawyers and defendants. Without confrontation, there is no argument, and without argument, there is no universal truth. What is the duty of a defense lawyer? This problem is not only vague among the people, but also specific to the case examples, and many judicial staff are also vague! Don't think that lawyers reject lawyers when they make mistakes in handling cases, because lawyers are born with this responsibility. It is precisely because of this that the defense lawyer and the accuser form a litigation confrontation relationship to prevent the accused crime from becoming a potential crime identification. In ensuring the fairness, rationality and acceptability of all criminal trials, defense lawyers are the most reliable and trustworthy force in the court. 201May 8, 3