The Right to a Fair Trial in China: The Criminal Procedure Law of 1996
Over a decade ago, the promulgation of the 1996 Criminal Procedure Law drastically improved the criminal justice system in China by introducing some key rights and procedural safeguards for criminal defendants. Unfortunately, in practice many of the rights introduced lacked real substance. The reforms were intended to introduce aspects of the adversarial system of justice to the historically inquisitorial system, however the safeguards introduced lacked the necessary guarantees to ensure compliance and the right to a fair trial is still far from a reality for China’s criminal defendants.
Legal Transplants in Chinese Criminal Law : The Dilution of Due Process Across National Boundaries
..........................................................................................5 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................6 LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................7 Rule of Law or Rule by Law?..........................................................7 The Pluralistic Structure of the Chinese Criminal Courts..................11 Legal Transplants: A Definition....................................................13 Due Process in the U.S. ..............................................................15 METHODOLOGY.................................................................................15 The Classical Theory of Path Dependence.....................................18 Recursivity of Law..........................................................................20 FINDINGS...............................................................................................23 Recursive Path Dependence..............................................................23 1978-1979 Criminal Law....................................................................24 1996-1997 Due Process Transplants..................................................25 2012-2013 Criminal Procedural Law Revisions...................................30 Li Zhuang Case (李庄案, Li Zhuang an)...............................................31 Qualitative Interviews Results............................................................35 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH......................................................38 CONCLUSION........................................................................................39 WORKS CITED.............................................................................................41 APPENDIX A................................................................................................46 APPENDIX B................................................................................................48
The Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China
(Adopted at the Second Session of the Fifth National People's Congress on July 1, 1979, and amended for the first time in according with the Decision on Amending the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China adopted at the Fourth Session of the Eighth National People's Congress on March 17, 1996, and amended for the second time in according with the Decision on Amending the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China adopted at the Fifth Session of the 11th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China on March 14, 2012)