The Research Report Of The Criminal Pretrial Conference System

The Criminal Procedure Law of China was revised in 2012,in which the criminal pretrial conference system was built by article 182,paragraph 2.Since its building,the system has been extensively discussed both in theoretical and practical circles.In the very beginning,the system was set up to improve the quality and efficiency of the trial,improve the criminal pretrial procedure in criminal cases,and break the traditional litigation model of “direct trial”,however it was just created six years ago,and due to the dispute in theory and defect in legislation of the system,the system did not perform its functions as we expected.Theoretically,the system can improve the situation that we have more cases but less staff to handle them,so it has been eulogized by the people of legal profession.While in practice,the system did not perform as a "Dazzling Pearl."Taking applications of the criminal pretrial conference system in judging cases of the two Intermediate People's Court in C city and H city,and in the People's Court in S country of Z city as samples,and combing the applications given by the China Judgement Online of the system in the court of different districts,this paper analyzes and summarizes the criminal pretrial conference system and it gives advice for the development and improvement of the system.In addition to the introduction and ending,this paper was divided into four parts.The first part gives an overview of the criminal pretrial conference system which was introduced from other countries.Firstly,it analyzes the concept of the system and discusses the differences among the criminal pretrial conference system and the public prosecution censorship system and the formal trial procedure,which gives an accurate definition of its function and lays a solid theory foundation for the investigation report.Secondly,the author sorts out and comment on the legislative development and the functional changes of the criminal pretrial conference system in our country to give an account of the legislative background of the research.Thirdly,this part discusses the guiding significance and function of the pretrial conference system to the judicial practice in theory.The system can help to ensure the fair trial,improve the court trial efficiency,and promote the trial function.The second part introduces the implementation the criminal pretrial conference system.This part is divided into two parts: on the one hand,it introduces the general situation of the application of the pretrial conference system;on the other hand,it discusses the specific process of the application of the pretrial conference system.Taking into account of statistics of the absolute application rate and the relative application rate of the pretrial conference system,the author analyzes the overall application situation of the pretrial conference system.In the implementation process,it analyzes the way of starting the pretrial conference,the reasons for its initiation,the master,the conditions of the defender participating in the pretrial conference and the distribution of charges involved in the pretrial conference.In order to promote the authenticity of the conclusion,the author conducts a statistical analysis of the charges involved in the criminal pretrial conference system on the basis of the data of China Judgement Online.The third part discusses the existing problems in the application process of the pretrial conference system through investigation and analyzes the causes of these problems.There are mainly four aspects.Firstly,the application rate of the pretrial conference system is low,which is analyzed from the aspects including the scope of the application of the pretrial conference system,the judge' understanding of the pretrial conference system,the traditional trial habits,the great pressure of trial,and the single trial methods.Secondly,pretrial conference is just serves as a formality.The four reasons lie in the considerations of avoiding litigation risk,the compulsory requirements of policy documents,the lack of supervision in the pretrial meeting,and the lack of guidance documents for the pretrial conference process.Thirdly,the staff who preside the conference are not fixed and the reasons have been given from the aspects of the legislative level.Fourthly,the participation rate of defendants is low,which is analyzed from two aspects including the legislative level and the cost of litigation.The fourth part puts forward suggestions on the development and perfection of the criminal pretrial conference system.In order to solve the problems that appear in the process of the application of the criminal pretrial conference system,the author gives the following five suggestions: firstly,the judge training system should be improved;secondly,the scope of cases before the criminal pretrial conference system should be expanded;thirdly,further expand the functions of the criminal pretrial;fourthly,the ways in which judge assistants preside over the criminal pretrial conference should be explored;fifthly,explore diversified opening mode to protect the right of the accused.