Research On Criminal Time Limit Of Trial

The system of time limits for trial, which is made in China, has a long historyand a solid foundation in our country. It is also an effective way for protecting humanrights and dealing criminal cases in a rapid way. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, thesystem of time limits began to take shape, which is absorbed by new China’s buildingof legal system. However, with the rapid increase of criminal cases, the judges’pressure by the trial has been increased, the original system of time limit for trial hasbecome a kind of trail burden for judges. It cannot protect the suspects or defendants’rights, but forced judges to wind up cases hurriedly and impairs the justice of the trial.Under the circumstances, the reform of the system is extremely urgent. Therefore, thewriter is trying to establish a system of time limit which adapted to our nationalcondition and conduct a method research through this essay. After conductingempirical investigation in some courts in Shanghai, consulting with some judges andreferring to the relevant reports, relevant data about criminal time limit for trial hasbeen got and the operational condition in the judicial practice has been known. In theopinion of the writer, the system should not be abandoned and has its necessity ofexistence.From the perspective of theory, the system of time limit for trial has multi valueincluding litigation efficiency, pursuing substantial truth and securing procedurejustice; from the perspective of judicial practice, it is an important guarantee to settlethe litigation explosion and litigation delay. On the basis of examination of the main foreign countries’ legal systems, thewriter compared the relevant systems and found that no matter in case law countriesor common law countries, the principal of concentrating hearing works as a guidanceto control the time of trial, with corresponding systems of procedural division. Thewriter hopes the comparison of the foreign countries can make reference to the reformof the time limit for criminal trial. Meanwhile, the writer analyzed the defects of thesystem and proposed measures that the time limit of trial should be adapted on thebasis of the current one as follows：Firstly, the time limit for the first instance shouldbe classified by grade jurisdiction; Secondly, the time limit for general procedureshould be extended; Thirdly, the scope of private prosecution cases should beextended; Fourthly, the identification period of criminal cases and settlements shouldbe taken into account with the improvement of relevent systems such as summaryprocedure, pending custody, responsibility investigation for exceeding time limit fortrial, judge personnel to establish a system of criminal time limit for trial whichadapted to our country.