Research On The Application Of The Leniency System For Pleading Guilty And Punishment In Trial Stage

It is an important measure to implement the criminal policy of combining punishment with leniency.In 2018,the newly revised Criminal Procedure Law Of The People’s Republic Of China(hereinafter referred to as The Criminal Procedure Law)legalizes the leniency system of guilty plea and punishment,and stipulates it in the chapter "tasks and basic principles" of the law.Since then,the leniency system of guilty plea and punishment has been officially promoted and implemented throughout the country.However,the provisions of the system in the criminal procedure law are too principled,and there are no more detailed provisions on the procedure,conviction and sentencing of the judicial organs in handling criminal cases.Based on this situation,on October 11,2019,the Supreme People’s court,the Supreme People’s Procuratorate,the Ministry of public security,the Ministry of national security and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued The Guiding Opinions On The Application Of The Leniency System For Pleading Guilty And Punishment(hereinafter referred to as The Guiding Opinions),which made detailed provisions on the application scope,conditions,determination and grasp of the system,providing guidance for the work of judicial organs.However,on the one hand,because the system has not been implemented for a long time nationwide,some problems encountered in judicial practice have just been exposed,which are not stipulated in the guiding opinions or are not comprehensive enough.On the other hand,as a national judicial organ,the court is also the final judge of conviction and sentencing,so the understanding of the system should be more thorough,and the application of the system should be more standardized and perfect.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the application of leniency system in the trial stage.This paper starts from the current situation of the court’s application of the leniency system of pleading guilty and punishment,analyzes the difficulties,problems and defects in the application of the system in the trial,and puts forward the corresponding countermeasures.This paper is divided into four parts,about 30000 words.The introduction briefly introduces the research background and significance of this paper,and roughly describes the research methods and the innovation of the research content of this paper.The first part introduces the leniency system of guilty plea.First of all,this paper expounds the necessity and the development process of the leniency system proposed by our country,and then analyzes how to grasp the system in the court trial stage from three aspects of "guilty plea","guilty punishment" and "Leniency".Finally,because the system is similar to the plea bargaining system in the United States and the criminal consultation system in Germany,this paper briefly introduces the plea bargaining system and the criminal consultation system,and compares them with the leniency system in China.Through comparison,on the one hand,we can learn from the foreign experience to improve the leniency system of guilty plea.On the other hand,through comparison,we can conclude that the leniency system of guilty plea is proposed under the background of China’s judicial reform and based on China’s judicial status quo,which has unique features and is an inevitable choice to optimize the allocation of judicial resources and improve judicial efficiency.The second part is to analyze the current situation of the application of the leniency system in the court trial stage,including the implementation of the duty lawyer system matching with the leniency system,and the service of interest litigation in the cases.In order to more intuitively show the current situation of the application of leniency system in the trial stage of the court,in the process of analysis and discussion,the author added some relevant data collected since the application of leniency system in the court.The third part puts forward the problems encountered in the process of applying the leniency of guilty plea,mainly including the lack of operability in practice due to the abstract provisions of the system,the nonstandard "voluntary" review of the defendant’s guilty plea by the judge,the imperfect duty lawyer system matching with the leniency of guilty plea,and the insufficient protection of rights,which lead to the problems of duty lawyers in judicial practice.However,the proportion of cases involving lawyers on duty still needs to be improved.There may be contradictions between the sentencing suggestions of procuratorial organs and the court’s independent exercise of judicial power in accordance with the law.Experts,scholars and judicial practitioners at the front line have different views on the specific form of sentencing suggestions of procuratorial organs.whether the court should take confession as a new sentencing plot is still inconclusive.There is no clear standard for the extent of leniency,which may lead to the abuse of the judge’s power.Through the analysis of the problems exposed in the court’s application of the leniency system of pleading guilty and punishment,the paper aims to improve the system and make it play a greater role.In the fourth part,the paper puts forward relevant suggestions based on the problems mentioned in the third part.First,it is suggested that the "voluntary" review of the defendant’s confession should adhere to the substantive review,and gradually establish a "voluntary" review mechanism.Second,we should improve the duty lawyer system,reasonably allocate the duty lawyer resources,and ensure that the defendants without defense lawyers can get the help of the duty lawyer in the trial stage;we should effectively implement the right of reading papers and meeting with the defense lawyers in the trial stage,enhance the participation of the duty lawyer in the case of confession and punishment,and avoid the duty lawyer system becoming a virtual one.Thirdly,it is suggested that the sentencing of procuratorial organs should adopt the form of "fixed penalty first,range penalty second",which can not only ensure the realization of the value of the system of guilty plea and leniency,but also respect the discretion of judges.Fourthly,it is suggested that "confession of guilt and punishment" should be taken as an independent sentencing circumstance,and a clear sentencing range should be stipulated,and the defendant should be given "ladder sentencing" according to the time of confession of guilt and punishment.