On the reform of China’s criminal procedures for trial supervision

Abstract

The amendment of China’s Criminal Procedure Law has attracted the eyes of both the academic and judicial practice circles. In this research, the authors focus on a particular aspect of the criminal procedure law called the criminal procedure for trial supervision (also called as criminal retrial procedure) to conduct a comprehensive and systematic discussion from three aspects—the necessity of its existence and reform, the concept of its reconstruction and the detailed concepts of reform. The authors consider that the existence of the criminal retrial procedure is in line with the law of litigation, and necessary for the realization of judicial justice; there are obvious defects in China’s criminal retrial procedure in view of the realization of judicial justice and the improvement of efficiency, which calls for reform based on updated concepts. This article points out that the modern criminal retrial procedure must combine the concepts of the pursuit of justice, correction of erroneous judgments and res judicata and the rule of prohibition against double jeopardy. The authors also give several suggestions on the reform of China’s criminal retrial procedure.