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10 year 10 On October 23rd, the communiqué of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was released. The plenary session proposed to "promote the reform of the trial-centered litigation system." What is "trial-centered"? What is its significance to the adjustment of criminal procedure structure and the improvement of the existing relationship between public security and procuratorial law? Han Xu, director of the Institute of Law of Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, was invited by the guest end of Sichuan Daily Watch to interpret it for you.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee established "ensuring judicial justice and improving judicial credibility" as one of the main tasks to comprehensively promote the rule of law. To this end, the communique of the plenary session put forward that "promoting the reform of the trial-centered litigation system" is centered on trial and judgment, which can also be called "trial and judgment centralism", that is, to highlight the central position of trial and judgment in all aspects of the whole process of litigation and emphasize the important role of trial and judgment in resolving disputes, which is determined by the nature of trial and judgment as judicial power.
We will promote strict administration of justice, adhere to the principle of taking facts as the basis and taking the law as the criterion, promote the reform of the litigation system centered on trials and judgments, and implement the lifelong responsibility system for handling cases and the accountability system for misjudged cases. -Communiqué of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee
As American jurist Dworkin said: "The court is the capital of the legal empire, and the judge is the monarch of the empire." In criminal proceedings, although a case has been investigated and prosecuted, the decision made only has the significance of procedural advancement, not the authoritative final conclusion. Only after a series of trial activities such as court investigation and court debate can the judgment be authoritative and final. Therefore, the proposal of "centering on trial and judgment" is based on the rational understanding and accurate grasp of the law of litigation and the rule of law by the executors, which plays an important role in promoting a new round of judicial reform, establishing judicial authority and realizing judicial justice.
The main meaning of trial judgment center refers to the trial stage of criminal proceedings as the center of the whole criminal proceedings, and the pre-trial procedures such as investigation and prosecution as the preparatory stage for the opening of trial procedures; Only in the trial stage can the legitimate rights and interests of the participants in the proceedings be fully guaranteed and the criminal responsibility of the defendant can be finally determined authoritatively.
However, "trial-centered" has not been established and implemented in China's judicial practice. Criminal litigation activities have long pursued investigation-centered "investigation-centered" and "file-centered". The problems of trial going through the motions and trial becoming a mere formality are more prominent, and trial becomes the confirmation procedure of investigation files. A large number of illegal investigations cannot be supervised and corrected through trial. "The bitter fruit of the trial is linked to the disease under investigation."
Investigation is originally an activity that serves the trial, and it has a pitching relationship with the trial. However, in the litigation stage theory, although the end of investigation means that the case may be transported to the next stage, investigation is more like a self-consistent procedure. It has cooked the "rice" and sent it to the procuratorate. Can the court not eat the "rice" cooked by the investigation organ?
————————— Journal of Civil Law College
On the one hand, "trial-centered" requires the first-instance procedure as the center, and attaches importance to the function of the first-instance procedure in solving factual problems and excluding illegal evidence; On the other hand, it emphasizes the trial as the center, requiring all parties to the lawsuit to present evidence, arguments and judges to evaluate evidence in court, preventing the interference and intervention of pre-trial and out-of-court factors, promoting the implementation of the principle of direct speech and the principle of open trial, realizing "visible justice" and truly making the people feel fair and just in every judicial case. "Trial-centered litigation system reform" will inevitably bring about the adjustment of criminal litigation structure and the change of the relationship between the three organs of the current public security law, which can be said to be a revolution in criminal justice in China.
Han Xu, director, researcher and doctor of law, Institute of Law, Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences.
Source:
Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences
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Please adopt it, thank you!