About Improvement In Surveillance System On Designated Residence

To be in line with the new development trend and requirements of international criminal justice, respect to and assurance of human rights were explicitly stipulated in Criminal Procedure Law in 2012. As one of the important contents revised in Criminal Procedure Law 2012, the residential surveillance system is designed to guarantee human rights.The revised Criminal Procedure Law 2012, compared with the version1996, not only makes a clear distinction between residential surveillance and bail pending trial, but further improves the contents. A system of its own has been established. In the revised Criminal Procedure Law, residential surveillance is defined as a non-custodial substitution to arrest, and serves as a transition between custodial measures, such as arrest, detention and so on, and the non-custodial measure bail pending trial. What make the revision 2012 unique are the additional regulations on surveillance system on designated residence.Not only do the new regulations comes as great improvement in the residential surveillance system, but plays a satisfying guiding role in judicial practices and is favored by judicial practitioners. However, there are also worries from the academic world that the abused surveillance system on designated residence will be transformed into another“double- designation” measure. The applicable conditions, way of implementation, implementation venue, legal supervision and consequences of surveillance of designated residence have been specified in Article 73 of Criminal Procedure Law. Besides, there aredetailed relevant provisions in Rules(trial) of People’s Procuratorate on Criminal Procedure issued by Supreme People’s Procuratorate and in Procedural Requirements on Public Security Organ’s Handling of Criminal Cases issued by the Ministry of Public Security. However,there still remain the following problems: the lack of fixed residence, the difficulty in measuring particularly serious bribery, diversified implementation venues, non-coercive legal supervision, etc. Considering the above-mentioned problems, there should be clear definitions on the applicable conditions of the lack of fixed residence and particularly serious bribery, implementation procedures should be strictly standardized, and supervision and relief procedures should be perfected.Only in this way will the surveillance system on designated residence be gradually improved.