On The Issue Of Exceeding Trial Period Of Criminal Cases In China

The trial period system for criminal cases is a legal system with ChineseCharacteristics, and fairly comprehensive provisions for it are made in The Law ofCriminal Procedure and relative judicial explanations. The effective implementationof the system has important meaning for raising lawsuit efficiency and safeguardingthe lawful rights and interests of the criminal defendant. But in recent years, with thecontinual changes in legal practices, this system has gradually lost its originalsystematical function. As a result, the issue of exceeding Trial Period of Criminalcases has become a difficult judicial problem and has attracted attention fromacademic circle. In this paper, taking the trial period system for criminal cases as astarting point, the author tries to systematically discuss the present situation, reasonsand countermeasures to the problem, with the purpose of getting a deep andcomprehensive understanding of this issue that is helpful for solving the problem.This thesis consists of4parts, over30thousand words.The first part is the starting part that brings forward the theme of the article,which mainly introduces the historical background in which the issue of exceedingtrial period of criminal cases gradually becomes a judicial problem, the reaction of theacademic and practical circle to the problem, and lays the groundwork for furtherstudy in the coming parts. For convenience of the study, this thesis is mainly targetedon the trial period that suits the first instant procedure of public prosecution cases.The second part is about the examination of the present situation of the issue,which analyzes it in two terms. One is the major types of expressions of the issue injudicial practice, which mainly contains transforming the trial procedures, using legaljustification of extending the trial period or suspending cases to conceal trials whichsubstantially exceeds the time limit, consulting with procuratorate to randomly sendback cases for supplementary investigations, and refusing to accept cases at ends ofyears, etc.. The other is to analyze the potential judicial harms of long-standing cases,such as infringing legal rights and interests of defendant, lowing trial efficiency, andweakening the deterrence of penalty. The third part focuses on a detailed discussion about the reasons of criminalcases exceeding the trial period. Long-standing cases are the result of differentreasons. First, there are system defects on the legislative level, such as the fairly shorttime limit of legally regulated term, setting the same trial period without properdivision of case types, lack of legal consequences of exceeding trial period, andobscure boundary between the detention term and trial period. Second, supportingmeasures for criminal-case trial period system need to be improved: the application ofnon-detention compulsory measures is far from perfect, judicatory is still withadministrative characteristics, case-diffluent mechanism is not fluent, and courts’internal case-management mechanism still has defects, etc. Third, judicial resourceallocation is also, to a certain degree, defective and unreasonable.The fourth part is the core part of the thesis, which discusses the solutions andcountermeasures for criminal cases exceeding trial period in detail. First of all, theauthor introduced the arguments in the academic circle on abolition of the trial periodsystem for criminal cases and put forward the basic viewpoint of this paper: it isnecessary to continue the system and it should not simply be abolished. Then theauthor points out that we should govern the problem with sensible thoughts, whichmeans seeking for the perfection of the system instead of simply waging a campaignto solve the problem. Finally, in terms of perfecting the systematical legislation andrelated measures, policies and systems, the author discusses the details of thecountermeasures to the issue of cases exceeding trial period.