III. Strengthening the Judicial Protection Mechanism of Human Rights

Respecting and protecting human rights is an important principle established by the Constitution of China and embodies the significant natures of the Socialist judicial system with Chinese characteristics. Through the litigation system reform focusing on adjudication, Chinese courts strictly implement the principles of legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime etc. and adopt criminal policy of tempering justice with mercy in a scientific way in order to prevent unjust, false and wrong cases and legally protect the attorney’s rights to exercise their duties. Positive results in terms of constructing judicial protection mechanism of human rights have been achieved.

To prevent and correct unjust, false and wrong cases. The SPC has put forward guiding opinions on the perfection of the working mechanism of preventing unjust, false and wrong criminal cases, which require legally declaring the defendant innocent without rendering a judgment in a downgrading way “with certain leeway”. From 2013 to 2015, the courts at various levels have legally declared 2,369 defendants innocent. The innocents are effectively protected from being held liabilities. Since 2013 to date, the SPC, adhering to the principles of being practical and realistic and righting every wrong, has supervised and directed the courts at various levels to correct 23 major unjust, false and wrong criminal cases, including “the Case of Zhang and His Nephew in Zhejiang”, “the Case of Huugjilt in Inner Mongolia”, and other cases. The confidence of whole society in judicial justice has been enhanced thereby.

To highlight modern judicial civilization in a court trial.The SPC has successively issued circulars together with the Ministry of Public Security on the dressing issues of the defendant or appellant of criminal cases and criminal serving a sentence who appear in court for trial. According to these circulars, in a people’s court, the defendant or appellant shall no longer dress the clothes from a detention house to appear in court for trial and the criminals serving a sentence shall no longer dress the prison uniform to appear in court for trial. Where a people’s court goes to a detention house to bring out a detained criminal defendant or appellant, the detention house shall hand over the detained criminal defendant or appellant in formal wear or casual wear to the people’s court.

To ameliorate the rapid handling mechanism of minor criminal cases. According to the authorization of the Standing Committee of the NPC, in August 26, 2014, the SPC together with other departments of the Central Government launched the pilot areas of rapid adjudication proceeding of criminal cases in Beijing and other 17 cities. As of December 31, 2015, 212 pilot primary people’s courts of China has applied rapid adjudication proceeding to adjudicate and close 31,086 criminal cases, concerning 32,188 persons, which accounts for 33.13% of the criminal cases with a sentence of less than one year imprisonment by the pilot courts within the same period and accounts for 15.48% of all criminal cases within the same period. The percentage of cases that have been adjudicated and closed by courts within 10 days is 92.77% and the percentage of passing a judgment or sentence in court reaches 95.94%. The percentage of appeal lodged by the plaintiff of incident civil action is zero and the percentage of appeal lodged by the defendant is only 2.13%. By reducing the pre-trial detention period, accelerating the handling of the case of the defendant and sentencing the defendant with more leniency, such mechanism fully shows the spirit of lenient punishment for persons who acknowledge their guilt and punishment. The community correction functions have also been attached more emphasis. All of these are conducive for the reformation and return to society of a criminal. The NPC Standing Committee meeting convened in November 2015 deliberates the pilot interim report and fully affirms the pilot work.

To practically protect the attorney’s rights to legally exercise their duties. The SPC has issued guidelines on legally protecting the attorney’s rights to litigation, which provide for the protection of the attorney’s information right, case files reviewing right, right of appearance on court, debating and defending rights, right of applying for obtaining evidence, right of applying for exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, right of petition on agency, and other practice rights such as guaranteeing personal safety and provision of convenience for performing duties. The SPC has safeguarded attorney's rights of inquiring the information on case filing and reviewing case materials by stipulating that an attorney may directly state his defense opinions vis-à-vis the judge of the SPC, ensuring the quality of the death penalty review case. The SPC has opened up a lawyer service platform on December 30, 2015 to ensure the smooth realization of such functions of online case filing, online case files review and contact with judges. As of December 31, 2015, the SPC attorney service platform has already collected information of 21,707 law firms and input 81,476 attorneys’ information. Shanghai and Zhejiang courts have established attorney service platforms which connect with the administration system of the local bar associations, whereby an attorney may complete case filing, payment, submission of evidential materials and application for evidence preservation, application for attendance of witness, postpone of time-limit for adducing evidence, online review of case files and other litigation matters online by simply inputting his license number.

To strictly regulate commutation, parole and serving sentences outside of prison temporarily. The SPC promulgates the Provisions on the Hearing Procedures for Cases of Commutation and Parole, which sets up open hearing system for cases of commutation and parole and the regular publication system of classic cases, and tightens the application conditions of commutation and parole for felony offenses. In 2015, a website of information on commutation, parole and serving sentences outside of prison temporarily of all Chinese courts is launched which is a uniform platform for the publicity, announcement, court trial and openness of judgements of relevant cases.

To strengthen the work related to state compensation. In order to give full play to the rights remedy function of the state compensation, the SPC has formulated the Interpretations on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Compensation Cases, published guiding cases of state compensation, improved cross-examination procedures of compensation cases, regulated and discretion standard of mental damage solatium and put forth opinions on strengthening the state compensation work over criminal unjust and wrong cases. Since 2014, the people’s courts at various levels have accepted 10,881 state compensation cases with a compensation amount of RMB113.389 million.

To standardize the judicial procedure concerning disposition of properties involved in cases. On October 30, 2014, the SPC issued a judicial interpretation to standardize such enforcement procedures of properties involved in criminal cases as confiscation of property, recovery, realization of properties at current rate and objection to enforcement. After the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the , the SPC together with other departments of the Central Government explores constructing a cross-department centralized management information platform for properties involved in local cases, and improves the pre-disposition procedure of properties involved in cases, pre-trial return procedure, and defines the litigation rights of interested parties, perfects the rights relief mechanism and ameliorates the accountability mechanism. In May 2015, Zhuji County of Zhejiang Province set up the first cross-department management center of properties involved in criminal litigation cases in China. The establishment of the unified information platform for management of properties involved in cases, into which various political and legal departments input the information of properties involved in cases under their respective administration to this platform, has realized the transfer of properties involved in cases in digital form and greatly facilitated the procedures of handling a case and standardized the procedures of disposition of properties involved in cases.