The Role Of Participating In The System Of Imposing Lenient Punishments On Those Confessing To Their Crimes And Accepting Judgments

The reform of the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments is an important issue in criminal procedure reform.Participant is not only the key part of the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their Crimes and accepting j udgments,but also the core factor to make the plea bargaining system operate in criminal justice well.The normative analysis,the investigation,the introspection and the amelioration of the main role in the system of imposing lenient punishments on t hose confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments can facilitate Chinese plea bargaining system operating well and promote the development of the system.Through the analysis of role theory,participants' role definition and behavior in the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments will be affected by the expectation of other roles,such as negotiation script,other subject,audience and theater environment,etc.The role of the subject must be positioned to meet the requirements of clear role positioning,role ability,and balance of interests.The litigation status,power and scope of rights of the participant have made major adjustment in the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments.The prosecutor has turned from a complainant who is committed to using the evidence to accuse the crime to a negotiator with the right to punish crime.The criminal suspect has transformed from a passive recipient of the pu nishment result under the control of state power to a negotiator who participates in the decision making process and affects the outcome of the case.Defenders are transformed from providers of substantive and procedural defenses to legal counsel and negot iating agents.The judge changed from an adjudicator who judged the dispute between the prosecution and defense to a judicial reviewer who reviewed the consensus of pre-trial negotiation.From the normative perspective,the design of the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments takes a more conservative mode,which is based on judicial tradition of authoritarianism and concerns about the abuse of negotiating power.The specific performance of the model is that the content of the pre-trial negotiation is basically limited to sentencing,the scope of application is limited to confession cases with clear facts,and the results of the negotiation are subject to strict judicial review.The role distributio n of the participant in specification files shows obvious Chinese characteristics: the police can act as the main body of negotiation,the limitation to prosecutor's negotiation rights,the substantive review by the judge,the fuzzy role of duty lawyer,th e passive situation of the defendant and the mixed participation of the victim.Judging from judicial practice,there is a role deviation of the main body in the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments after considering actualization and contextualization of main role's dynamic deduction.The participants' self-cognition,motivation mechanism,external behavior,and external evaluation.etc deviate from the general requirements of the identity of particular subject.The main performance of role deviations are as follows: the laziness of investigative agency,the unbalanced power between the prosecution and defense,the functional limit of duty lawyer,the rejection between the accusation and interrogation and victim's role dilemma.The main reasons leading to role deviations in practice are as follows: the "path dependence" of institutional reform,the "individual inclination" and "egoism" of participant,the limitations of institutional design and insufficient institutional preparation.Negotiated justice can be divided into two modes by extraterritorial investigation of related systems,which are distinguished by the degree of freedom of negotiation.One is the laissez-faire model represented by plea bargaining,the other one is the restricted mode represented by the negotiation system of civil law system.The main role's allocation and the configuration of authority and rights about the national negotiation system are all reflecting strong native colo r.However,the role deviations in institutional practice is still the universal problem in other countries.From the overall development trend,all the countries are pursuing a balance of values between justice and efficiency and constantly adjusting main role,authority and rights in order to ensure the fairness of negotiation while achieving the efficiency of negotiation.It is necessary to establish the cooperation concept of deliberative democracy and consultation for participants.Breaking away mental restraint and behavioral inertia and realizing the changes of roles and powers in the system of imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting judgments,which is good for adjustment and rectification about main role.At th e institutional level,power obligation and its configuration should be optimized.Giving the defendant equal rights to negotiate,Improving the discretion of the prosecutor,Defining the defender's position of the duty lawyer,Standardizing the judicial r eview power of judges and Adjusting reasonably the participation of victims,which provide more scientific and specific rules and guidelines for the main role's litigation behavior to ensure the realization of the negotiation justice.Improving the working mechanism at the technical level,increasing the enthusiasm of the main role's work and promoting the value of efficiency.