The Right Route Of Standardized Sentencing Reform

In recent years, with the emergence of a series of controversial cases,especially those cases which have similar details but get different judicialresults were brought to the attention of major media and the people, andresulted in strong social repercussions. Many problems in the sentencingprocess inevitably cause people’s suspicion about judicial fairness andjudicial openness. The credibility and authority of the court arecontinually challenged. At the same times, in the research of criminal law,people always focus on criminal theory and penalty theory is often easilyoverlooked. Sentencing issues are rarely discussed and researched. Underthe lead of the Supreme People’s Court, our judicial circles startedsentencing standardization reform. After the previous study, under thelead of the Supreme People’s Court of the Judiciary were standardizedsentencing reform, in October2010the courts throughout the country conduct a comprehensive pilot, basing on “Opinions on Several Issues ofStandardizing Sentencing Program (Trial)” in our country, which wasjointly issued by the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’sProcuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of NationalSecurity and the Ministry of Justice.In our criminal trials, the concept that valuing conviction butoverlooking sentencing always exists. Because of that, in the trial ofcriminal cases, judges, prosecutors, lawyers pay more attention to thequalitative problem of defendant’s criminal, while sentencing to beignored. According to the civil law tradition in our country, in sentencingmethods, the judge mainly use the method of experience, and sentencingthe results naturally depends primarily on the legal cultivation ofindividual judges and ethical guidelines.The use of the sentencingmethod inevitably leads to frequent appearance of the phenomenon thatdifferent punishment I similar cases. It is also more than a lack of scientific sentencing. Since reform is imperative. The good news is thatthe sentencing reform received good results since its inception. In termsof the judicial staff, the sentencing concepts and the way of thinking hasbeen profoundly changed. The appeal rate in district court was graduallyreducing. It is really remarkable results.But we must also see that any reform of a system will inevitablyaccompanied by many problems.“The future is bright, the road isdifficult” s a constant topic for a reform. With the reform going, we cansee the fruition of the reform, but at the same time, we must notice thatmany4problems have been gradually revealed with reform. In the world,as the pioneer of sentencing reform, the United States, after a long reformprocess, has encountered many problems, and in American judicialcircles, the pros and cons of the sentencing reform and the practical effecthas been debated for years from the beginning of the reform, and it is stillvery controversial. Considering the specific situation of our country, we can find the sentencing reform has just begun. Related theories wereconstantly improved, but the establishment of a system always has to gothrough a period of time. It is really based on that, in reform practice, theproblems that judge use the methods stiffly and the formalization exist insentencing process, as well as value conflict between justice andefficiency in the sentencing trial.Through the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that thesentencing reform now seems to have been the challenges of reform thatwe must face, which need someone to spend time in finding a variety ofissues in the process of reform. They also should try their best to explorevarious solutions way, which will be the obligation for a legal worker.That’s the reason why I chose this topic as my plan of treatise.