On The Application Conditions Of Criminal Summary Procedure

As a high efficient means of litigation, summary procedure has been universally adopted in the serious situation of piles of cases, and tense judicial resources. However, summary procedure’s rapidity and informality mean a compromise of due procedure, and have a hidden danger to threaten substantive justice and protection of human rights, therefore, it must be cautious and rigid for the application of summary procedure. With the amendment of Criminal Procedure Law in2012, great changes have taken place for the application conditions of summary procedure. This paper intends to comprehensively discuss the course of establishment and changes of summary procedure’s applying conditions, and analyzes the prevailing application conditions of summary procedure, then combing with the investigation of judicial practice, points out those problems that should be paid attention to during the practice after amendments, and it also puts forward some improvement conceptions, hoping to promote the correct application of summary procedure.Part one reviews the basic ideas of the application conditions of summary procedure in China’s Criminal Procedure Law, as well as the establishment and change of its legislative provisions. Both the concepts of efficiency and the standards of procedure division have experienced the course of power-oriented turning to rights-oriented. We have once established the application conditions of summary procedure before the People’s Republic of China, and once have informal application conditions of quick-approval procedure after the People’s Republic of China. From the first establishment of summary procedure application conditions by Criminal Procedure Law inl996to the modification through judicial interpretation in2003, and till great revision of2012,summary procedure’s application conditions have completed a more and more scientific and reasonable process which is from rough to meticulous, from disperse to unitary, and from quantitive change to qualitative change. Through vertical and transverse comparison of the intensity of modifying the application conditions of summary procedure, analysis the effects of application conditions’amendment to every subject and system of evidence, we suggest the amendment of the application conditions of summary procedure is a transform.Part two analyzes the prevailing application conditions of summary procedure one by one, and demonstrates its reasons and effects of legislation from two aspects of positive conditions and negative conditions. As for positive conditions, it’s mainly including conditions of jurisdiction, conditions of evidence, conditions of pleading guilty and conditions of defendant’s consent; while for negative conditions, it’s mainly including capacity for action, plead guilty of accomplices, effects of society, supplementary conditions and fallback provisions.Part three points out problems of summary procedure’s application conditions that existed in practice. The judicial officers at primary level neither have a sufficient recognition on the reformation of the application conditions of summary procedure, nor realize that this reformation puts forward higher requirements for judicial work, which results in the problem of simplified and formalized operation; the defendant’s confession identification standard is ambiguous, the voluntariness, sensibility and completeness of the defendant’s confession can not be guaranteed; the standard of clear facts and sufficient evidence can not be verified and becomes an impracticable sloganeering provision; it has a tense relationship with the substantive reality finding purpose, and is incapable of containing extortion of confession by torture and fall guys; there is a risk that it may infringe the defendant’s human rights.Part four puts forward some recommendations on improving the application conditions of summary procedure. First of all, it suggests making further explanation on the application conditions of summary procedure, and clarifying the specific standards of clear facts and sufficient evidence; detailing the requirements of the voluntariness, sensibility and completeness of the defendant’s confession. Secondly, it advises making the procedures of the application conditions detailed, designs evidence exchange procedures, special confession and defence procedures, and defendant’s consent procedures, and promoting the standardization of summary procedure’s application. Finally, it suggests that relevant measures should be completed, review and prosecution should be improved, the procedures outside the court should be simplified, and that a comprehensive lawyer rescue system should be established to make sure that the application of summary procedure may achieve balance between justice and efficiency.