On The Improvement Of China's Duty Lawyer System

Duty Lawyer system was first derived from the British Duty Lawyer Scheme in fifteenth Century.As a western developed country with a relatively well-established criminal defense system,the British law provides that all criminal suspects and defendants,whose personal liberty are restricted or who may be sentenced to be against freedom,have the right to own the defense of the lawyer in criminal proceedings.However,when the lawyer has not yet been hired or the relevant procedures to get legal aid from the lawyer have not yet been gone though,the problem of "gap period" in criminal defense is revealed.In order to solve the problem,the Duty Lawyer program in Britain is designed to provide preliminary and urgent legal services for suspects and defendants when it comes to the above circumstances.This design,playing a positive role in the protection of human rights in criminal justice,has systematically ensured the development requirements of full coverage of international judicial criminal defense,and has been gradually popularized and applied all over the world.The exploration of China's Duty Lawyer system began with the pilot project of Legal Aid which was carried out by the Ministry of justice in Xiuwu County,Henan Province in August 2006.On the basis of summarizing the experience of the project,the Ministry of Justice decided to deploy and promote the Duty Lawyer system nationwide.In 2014 and 2016,the Duty Lawyer system was incorporated into the criminal quick adjudication procedure,and the pilot work of the leniency system of guilty plea and punishment by the Supreme Law and the Supreme Procuratorates authorized by the National People's Congress.It has become an indispensable supporting system for the pilot reform.In August 2017,the so-called Two houses and Three departments(meaning The Supreme People's Court,the Supreme People's Procuratorates,the Ministry of Public Security,the Ministry of State Security,the Ministry of Justice,and the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee)jointly issued "the opinions on carrying out the work of duty lawyers in legal aid",marking the formal establishment of the Duty Lawyer system in China.With the revision and promulgation of the judicial interpretation of the criminal procedure law in 2018 and the supreme law in 2021,China's Duty Lawyer system has been further improved,which has played an important role in promoting the realization of procedural justice and the improvement of litigation efficiency,making up for the shortcomings of legal aid and improving the practice of the leniency system of guilty plea and punishment.China's Duty Lawyer system has become the basis of comprehensively deepening the reform of the judicial system,and the core part of Improving the protection of human rights in criminal justice.However,the duty lawyer system,as a new imported system,in the actual operation,reveals that there are still deficiencies in the consistency with the reality of China's criminal justice,which still has the potential problems,such as inaccurate positioning,insufficient understanding,insufficient attention and so on.Therefore,from the perspective of criminal justice practice,I do my best to explore the way of qualitative development of China's duty lawyer system by trying to solve the problems of inaccurate functional positioning,abnormal use of functions,insufficient attention of judicial organs,insufficient subject and funds of lawyers,and the lack of effective legal help.