On Improvement Of Chinese Criminal Pretrial Conference System

Chinese Criminal Procedure Law, taking effect on January 1st,2013, added a "Pretrial Conference System", as the intermediate connection between Prosecution and Trial. Pretrial conference system plays a very important role, aiming to reorganize procedural issues which may affect or hinder the development of trial, to clear some substantive issues, to improve the efficiency of the trial and the smoothness of trial.As a new procedure, how to operate a pretrial conference is becoming a hot topic discussed by both the academic and the practical. However, the current criminal procedural law and its judicial interpretations only provide principle provisions, lacking of operability. So there are many different views or practices, for example, various applicable scope, controversial launch methods, unclear defendant’s status, simple way of host selection, blank rules on legal binding agreements, and loss of effectiveness. To some extent, these problems result in unified standard of application and affect the realization of expected function. Therefore, by reviewing extraterritorial related systems and studying our present situation of legislation and practice, this article intends to provide suggestions on further construction and improvement of pretrial conference, in order to better solve existing judicial problems.For effectively linking legislation with practice, this article will conduct the research within the following four parts on criminal pretrial conference. The first chapter is an overview of pretrial conference, mainly introducing the concept and characteristics, and its value. The second chapter is to discuss extraterritorial related systems by transverse comparisons of basic rules and procedural contents in England, France, Germany, America, Japan and Taiwan. The third chapter is about the status quo and defects of pretrial conference system in China, analyzing its positive and negative effects. The final chapter, the emphasis of this article, primarily discusses how to perfect Chinese pretrial conference system, firstly defining its value pursuit and then designing the specific procedures by application scope, initiation subject, date and place, participants, contents, operation mode and legal effect.