On The Relationship Between Criminal Lawyers And Judges

In our criminal justice system, defense lawyers and judges have different nature. Defense lawyer is independent:from the identity point of view, lawyers are "practitioners who provide legal services for the parties ", they are independent from the state and the parties, not subordinate to any will; Judging of the role of defense lawyer, they play an important part in discovering truth and realizing justice. Defense lawyer has service nature:there is a contractual relationship between defense lawyers and the parties and defense lawyers provide legal services for clients based on legal principles. Defence lawyers have social nature:its main task is providing practical legal professional services for the community in need of legal services. Defense lawyers have economic nature:they provide legal services for defendants in order to get paid, they link clients with economic interests. Judge has justice nature:realizing social justice with administration of justice is the sacred mission of judges, the concept of justice should be the basic quality which judges must have. Judge is neutral:neutrality is the basis and pre-condition for ensuring the impartiality; judge is independent of the prosecution and the defense and does not represent the interests of any party. With non-economic interests, judge engages in a public utility and does not have any economic interests.In Criminal proceedings, the right relationship between lawyers and judges include the following aspects:judging from the natural properties, for the difference in identity, responsibilities, the relationship between the parties and the difference in the way of work, lawyers and judges should be independent of each other. When defence lawyers implement the defence mission, first of all, for the same occupational characteristics and ultimate goal, defense lawyers and judges should mutually respect each other. To achieve this goal, both parties must fully understand and profoundly understand the characteristics and responsibilities of respective job. Second, for the same general function and the complementarity of specific functions in criminal proceedings, the defense lawyers and judges should coordinate and cooperate with each other, which is not only beneficial for the development of the business of defense lawyer, but also conducive to the progress and development of judge. Again, defense lawyer and the judge should supervise each other, because they share a common background, common legal terms, common law thinking, and a common pursuit, because of the difference in specific functions mutual supervision is needful and possible and will be effectve. When there is no case for trial, for one thing, defense lawyers and judges should also distance from each other and they should not trade power for money, to avoid public reasonable doubt about judicial impartiality; for the other thing defense lawyers and judges ought to mutually comunicate, mainly on academic exchange and business communication, so as to continuously enrich and enhance their professional knowledge, skills and personal qualities, and promote the formation of the legal professional community.There are some problems in the relationship between lawyers and judges in practical criminal proceedings. On the one hand, there is a crisis of confidence between defense lawyers and judges,and they always belittle each other; on the other hand, some defense lawyers and judges contact too closely during the proceedings, which lead to serious illicit relationship. These problems make defense lawyers and judges can not effectively play their due roles in the criminal justice process,and damage the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. It is not conducive to the set of their professional images and not conductive to the improving of the qualities of judges and defense lawyers. It is also hamful to the construction of law society. The reasons why these problems arise include the following aspects:the lack of legal beliefs and the low social status of lawyers in our legal tradition; the impact of litigation systerm and judicial independence is not formed in present legal system; in legislation, the practical right of defense lawyers is not fully protected and the operability of the punishment in the relevant provisions is poor; the difference in income mechanisms lead to heart imbalance of the judge and in order to obtain high-income, lawyers must seek to achieve superiority in competition; the deep-seated reason is that China has not formed a legal professional community yet, so lawyers and judges lack understanding of the processes and characteristics of respective job and lack professional identity.Regulating the relationship between lawyers and judges in criminal proceedings is significant. It can help to establish the judicial authority, to maintain justice, to restrict illegal behaviors of defense lawyers and judges and to protect the legal rights of clients. It is also conducive to helping lawyers to avoid and reduce the risk in practice. In order to regulate the relationship between lawyers and judges in criminal proceedings, we should adopt the following measures. In the ideological aspect, defense lawyers and judges should strengthen their own professional ethics, and establish a common belief, abide by the judicial ethics; in the institutional aspect, we should protect the independence of judges and perfect security system of defense lawyers in practice. In addition, we should improve the punishment and incentive mechanisms about the non normal relationship between defense lawyers and judges and improve the supervision mechanism about the relationship between them.