Study On The Legal Risks Of Chinese Defence Counsels

Criminal procedure system is an integral system of any country that subjects to the rule of law, and the system of advocacy is an important part of criminal procedure system. The right of defence is the core element of the defence system, and its exertion depends on the professional knowledge and experience of defence counsels. A country subjects to the rule of law should firstly guarantee the basic rights of the accused, whether it can be effectively exercised is directly related to the vital interests of the accused, and such a right of defence with strong profession cannot be effectively exercised by non-lawyers. Therefore, it is particularly important to guarantee defence counsels’ right of defence in accordance with law. He Weifang said that disasters come when the layers are obstructed. It is no exaggeration to say that the degree of protection of a nation to defence counsels as well as the level of legal risks directly reflect the nation’s level of construction of rule of law as well as the strength and weakness of protection of human rights.This paper takes "legal risks of Chinese defence counsels"as the theme, and based on the preface of "Li Zhuang Case", it leads to the general issues of legal risks of defence counsels, including the concept, type and feature; the focus of this paper is the cause analysis of legal risks which is mainly carried out from four aspects of legislative and judicial security systems, relief measures and the influence of traditional culture, analyzing the problems of China while combining with the related problems of the criminal law system in the United States to conduct integrated analysis. The last part is a conception of the control of legal risks of defence counsels. This part proposes measures to solve the causes mentioned above, which mainly from the perspective of traditional culture, putting forward emancipating minds and changing ideas as well as enhancing the status, and from the perspective of legislation, it proposes clearing up law, guaranteeing implementation and strengthening empowerment, and from the perspective of judiciary, it proposes judicial reform, separation of accusation and trial as well as equal prosecution, and from the perspective of industrial management it proposes strengthening the role of protection of bar association; from the perspective of lawyers, it proposes raining their own accomplishment, self-regulation and specification. The procedural rights of the defence has been expanded to some extent after the amendment of Law of Criminal Procedure in2012, but it neither reduces the legal risks of defence counsels, nor changes the legal position of defence counsels.