Full text: New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China (6)

Protecting lawyers' right to practice. The protection of lawyers' right to practice is essential to protecting the lawful rights and interests of their clients and ensuring proper enforcement of the laws. China has formulated or revised multiple laws, regulations and documents to better respect and guarantee lawyers' right to practice. "The Opinions on Deepening the Reform on the Lawyer System", the Regulations on Guaranteeing Lawyers' Right to Practice by Law, the "Notice on Formulating and Completing Fast Response Mechanism to Safeguard Lawyers' Right to Practice", the "Notice on Further Improving the Work to Guarantee Lawyers' Right to Practice", and the Measures on the Pilot Work to Apply Lawyer Defense to All Criminal Cases have been released, stipulating multiple-level measures to protect lawyers' right to practice, resolve prominent conflicts in the protection of lawyers' rights, and further clarify the duties of relevant departments to protect lawyers' right to practice and the right of persons. The Supreme People's Court has opened an online service platform for lawyers. Via this platform, lawyers will be able to file cases, access files, and contact judges. Since 2013 procuratorates at all levels have regulated and corrected 6,542 cases in which lawyers' right to practice were being impeded by state organs and case-handling personnel. By March 2017 rights protection centers had been established in 31 provincial-level lawyers' associations and in most cities with districts, basically covering the whole country. By August 2017 there were more than 330,000 lawyers and over 26,000 law firms across the country. Every year lawyers handle over 3.3 million lawsuits, more than one million non-litigation legal matters, take on over 500,000 cases of legal aid, offer public legal services in more than 2.3 million cases, and act as legal consultant for more than 500,000 entities.

Guaranteeing the legitimate rights and interests of criminal suspects, defendants and prisoners. China has improved the procedures for granting exemptions from or altering of compulsory measures to suspects in custody and defendants, and reduced the application of compulsory measures of custody. Procuratorates at all levels, in accordance with the law, decide not to arrest or prosecute anyone for acts that they do not consider to be a crime or when there is insufficient evidence, and contest the criminal ruling when they believe that there is a real error in accordance with the law. From 2012 to 2016, procuratorial organs across the country recommended release or changes in the compulsory measures in case of 12,552 criminal suspects who did not require further detention. In 2016, procuratorial organs at all levels urged the withdrawal of 10,661 cases that they considered should not have been filed by investigation organs. They scrutinized and corrected 34,230 cases of investigation activities involving obtaining evidence in contravention of the law, and illegally applying compulsory measures. They rejected the arrest of 132,081 suspects and the prosecution of 26,670 accused for acts that did not constitute a crime or where there was insufficient evidence, and they filed 7,185 criminal counter appeals against wrong judgment.

The state has improved the conditions of detention and supervision, strengthened the construction and management of detention facilities and prisons, and guaranteed personal safety and other legitimate rights and interests of detainees and prisoners. By June 2017, psychological counseling rooms had been widely established in detention centers in China; 2,501 detention centers had two-way video calling services through the internet for detainees and prisoners, and more than 2,400 detention centers across the country had set up legal aid workstations to provide legal assistance to detainees. As of 2016, all detention centers in the country had set up complaint-handling mechanisms for detainees, and 2,489 detention centers had appointed special supervisors. China has improved the execution of penalties and the institutions of community correction.[Community correction refers to non-imprisonment correction penalty imposed on those whose crimes are relatively minor and who have been sentenced to public surveillance, probation, release on parole, and temporary execution outside prison.] By the end of June 2017, administrative organs of justice around the country had received a total of 3.4 million persons subject to community correction. Of these, 2.7 million had completed their correction, and 700,000 continued their community correction. A total of 2,075 county and district community correction centers have been set up nationwide. There are 25,278 community service bases, 9,373 education bases, 8,272 employment bases, and 687,000 community correction groups in China. The recidivism rate in the case of those assigned to community correction is 0.2 percent.

Improving the legal assistance system. China has reinforced criminal legal assistance. China has implemented provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law and other relevant laws and regulations on legal assistance. It has established a working mechanism of legal assistance contributing to the settlement of cases involving victim-offender reconciliation and the review of death penalty, and the legal assistance duty counsel system. China has improved the mechanisms for providing legal assistance to applicants, and for public security organs and procuratorates to notify the defendants about the legal assistance. China has improved the pilot mechanism for legal assistance playing a role in summary trial procedures for criminal cases; and provided legal assistance to more criminal litigants in accordance with the law. China has expanded the coverage of civil and administrative legal assistance and gradually included matters closely related to people's life into the scope of legal assistance. China has relaxed the criteria for economic difficulty applying to entitlement to legal assistance, further lowered the threshold for legal assistance, and helped more people in need. China has improved the mechanism of providing convenient legal assistance to the public, striven to achieve full coverage of legal assistance consultancy services, and promoted the standardization of legal assistance. From 2013 to 2016, a total of RMB7.3 billion was used for handling more than 5 million legal assistance cases, helping more than 5.57 million people and providing legal consultancy services in more than 28 million cases.

Strengthening criminal judicial protection of juveniles. China has persevered with the principles of education, persuasion, and rehabilitation for juveniles who commit crimes, and implemented the system of sealing juvenile criminal records in cases below five years of fixed-term imprisonment. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has set up a procuratorial work office for juveniles. As of November 2016, 24 provincial procuratorates, 192 municipal procuratorates and 1,024 grassroots procuratorates had set up special procuratorial agencies for minors. The state has promoted the development of juvenile courts, and as of June 2017, there were more than 2,200 juvenile courts and over 7,000 juvenile court judges throughout the country. In recent years, the recidivism rate of juvenile offenders has been held at 1-3 percent. The numbers of juvenile criminals and juvenile criminal cases have been declining as a whole.

Improving the state compensation system and judicial aid system. China has promulgated the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases Regarding Compensation, issued guiding cases on state compensation, improved the procedure of cross-questioning evidence, and standardized compensation for mental suffering. From 2013 to June 2017, courts at all levels heard 20,027 cases involving state compensation. China has strengthened and standardized the work of legal aid, unified the filing of cases, the scope, the procedures and the standards of legal aid, and the supply and the use of funds so as to institutionalize the legal aid system and handle cases qualified for legal aid in a judicial framework. Courts at all levels including the Supreme People's Court have set up legal aid committees. The total amount of aid provided by the central and local governments was RMB2.47 billion in 2014, RMB2.94 billion in 2015 and RMB2.66 billion in 2016, benefiting more than 268,000 people. (more)