Research On The Status Of Minutes Of Judicial Meetings As Criminal Law Source

The minutes of judicial meetings refer to the working documents of the judicial organs issued by the judicial organs at all levels in the form of"minutes",which have a very wide application status in the operation of judicial power in China.Especially in recent years,the minutes issued by different levels of judicial organs have become increasingly effective in adjudicating criminal justice cases.On one hand,the minutes of judicial meetings are explicitly or implicitly invoked in judicial decisions,and have extensively and profoundly affected the judicial outcome of criminal cases.On the other hand,there have been few papers devoted to it,and some studies have misunderstood and confused its legal nature.That needs to be clarified urgently.The search results show that the main body of the minutes of judicial meetings includes both the highest judiciary and the local judiciary;both the joint promulgation of the judiciary and the signing by the executive and judiciary;both the judiciary and the judiciary Built-in institutions.On the whole,in the formulation of the main body,the introduction of the minutes of judicial meetings appeared out of order and random.However,at the same time,a large number of adjudication documents show that the minutes of judicial meetings have served as the basis for adjudication in terms of conviction,sentencing,punishment execution and elimination,and have profoundly affected criminal judicial adjudication.At present,the mainstream academic opinion defines "law source" as "the collection of judgment norms".Then,is it reasonable to use the minutes of judicial meetings widely used as "source of criminal law",and how to apply it?This problem has outstanding practical significance and theoretical value.From the perspective of the practical application of the minutes of judicial meetings as the norm of criminal adjudication,the problems of the imbalance of inter-provincial sentencing and the lack of publicity have become important disputes in the application of the minutes of judicial meetings in criminal adjudication.By examining two minutes of judicial meetings on handling drunk driving cases in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces,it can be found that a large number of interprovincial differences in convictions and sentencing will make the existing interprovincial sentencing imbalances even more pronounced.At present,a large number of the minutes of judicial meetings lack the necessary public channels,and the level of publicity is extremely low,which makes the minutes of judicial meetings as the basis for conviction and sentencing judgments lack sufficient credibility and explicitness,which reduces the acceptability and predictability of judgment results.This in turn affects its legitimacy as a source of criminal lawBy observing the actual environment of criminal justice,we can find that the current judicial interpretation system cannot fully meet the needs of local criminal justice practice.This is the main reason for forcing local judicial organs to adopt the minutes of judicial meetings as the basis for criminal trials.Therefore,how to correctly understand the legal source status of the minutes of judicial meetings under the constraint of the legal principle of criminal punishment has become the primary issue of related research.Due to the strict limitation of the criminal law source on the principle of statutory crimes and penalties,it is obviously impossible for the minutes of judicial meetings to obtain the status of formal legal source in the current rule of law system.However,considering the existing practice and practical needs of judicial trials,the judicial guidance documents,which take the minutes of judicial meetings as typical representatives,inevitably provide important reference guidelines for the judicial organs(especially the grass-roots judicial organs).The promulgation of the minutes of judicial meetings and its application in criminal judicial rulings are neither possible nor necessary.A more realistic option is to recognize the informal legal source status of the minutes of judicial meetings in criminal rulings to a certain extent,and the criminal ruling personnel can freely choose and apply them,so that they can play a role in criminal rulings under certain conditions and case situations.It will not be a compulsory norm and lead to the arbitrariness or rigidity of criminal judgment.In order to solve the above problems,the minutes of judicial meetings should be used as the source of law to realize the rule of law under the constraint of the legal principle of crime and punishment.On the one hand,it should establish the principle of binding as a source of law:the minutes of judicial meetings issued by local and lower judicial organs do not have a relationship with the source of the law,the minutes of judicial meetings should not be used as a basis for access,and should not be guided by the trial of the guiding case.In case of conflict,the conclusion of the adjudication made with reference to the minutes of judicial meetings shall be clearly stated in the document.On the other hand,it should be standardized:carry out the work of cleaning up and compiling the minutes of judicial meetings,at the same time subject and establish the main body and procedures for the formulation and release of the minutes of judicial meetings,and legislatively establish a system for disclosing information on the minutes of judicial meetings,and eventually gradually separate the judicial system.Standard interpretation function of the minutes of judicial meetings.