Text/Chen Jieren
On June165438+1October 2 1, the Supreme Court issued the "Opinions on Establishing and Perfecting the Working Mechanism for Preventing Criminal Misjudged Cases", which put forward 27 specific opinions from five aspects: respecting and safeguarding human rights, strengthening evidence review, and carefully checking and auditing to prevent unjust, false and misjudged cases.
Many people praised this and even cheered. But in my opinion, this opinion is just another manifestation of the Supreme Court's lip service to judicial justice for many years.
As we all know, the reasons for the constant unjust, false and misjudged cases in criminal trials mainly come from four aspects: first, the public security law has changed from mutual checks and balances to mutual cooperation; Second, the idea of presumption of guilt is at work, which lacks due respect for criminal suspects and defendants and equates solving crimes with conviction; Third, preconceived, noncommittal, ignoring the basic rules of evidence, basically ignoring defenders and defense opinions; Fourth, criminal investigation, prosecution and trial are wrongly tasked and politicized, and the court has become a tool of dictatorship.
For example, the opinion puts forward that "confessions of defendants collected by torture or illegal methods such as freezing, hunger, sun exposure, baking and fatigue interrogation should be excluded." Seeing this opinion, people suddenly realize that the court has long known that these inhuman interrogation methods exist in the investigation stage, but the question is, how many courts have identified these behaviors in how many trials? In my impression, unless the defendant is particularly clever or lucky, the truth of extorting a confession by torture can surface. In most cases, the defendant's opinion that he was extorted by torture was rejected by the judge.
Take the open trial as an example. Over the years, the Supreme Law has emphasized it countless times, but so far, first, the more the public cares about major sensitive cases, the less they have the opportunity to attend. Second, the vast majority of judicial documents are not open, making it more difficult to inquire. Third, the trial hall of the court is difficult to enter, and the bailiff's attitude towards the observers is like a wolf. Under such a situation, isn't the disclosure of justice a joke?
Take respect for human rights as an example. In criminal trials, defendants are handcuffed and wearing prison clothes everywhere. Judges are used to this way of prejudging and humiliating the defendant's personality. Judges often interfere with the cross-examination and defense opinions of defendants. The case has not been concluded yet, and even the judge found the defendant guilty in his heart. What is the guarantee of judicial justice?
In fact, all the above problems, in the final analysis, come from the same factor-that is, judges do not regard themselves as judges, but regard themselves as tools of the ruler's dictatorship and consciously or unconsciously become servants of the investigation organs. As long as it is the person arrested by the investigation organ and prosecuted by the procuratorate, the judge first considers himself a "bad guy" based on the dislocation of his role, and then tries to pursue the evidence and results that are unfavorable to the defendant with a preconceived attitude.
In this sense, it is meaningless to effectively prevent the occurrence of unjust, false and wrong cases in criminal trials, and it is meaningless to rely solely on those empty words and rhetoric. Judges must do two things: first, introspect their roles, liberate themselves from the shadow of authoritarian tools, and be truly neutral and negative referees; Second, truly respect the personality and opinions of lawyers who are also members of the legal profession, at least respect lawyers and prosecutors in the same position. Only by doing these two things can we truly pursue the neutrality and justice of criminal trial from the heart.
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