On the Regulation and Improvement of the Right of Prosecutorial Counter-Appeal in Plea Bargaining

Abstract

Plea bargaining, one of the top-level system design priorities in China’s judicial reform, was officially written into the 2018 amended Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China. A comprehensive legal system of substantive and procedural regulations combined, plea bargaining has undoubtedly set off a craze for the theoretical study of criminal procedure and made invaluable assets in it. In plea bargaining, however, how prosecuting authorities exercise the power of supervision is rarely learned. Given that, this paper will explore how prosecuting authorities deal with cases where the accused appeal for a lenient sentence after agreed plea bargains and how they exercise the power of supervision to avoid the dilemma of “prosecutorial counter-appeals in response to appeals” and get rid of misunderstandings of trial supervision.