The year 2005 saw the media in China frequently
reporting on injustice in trials, which a Xinhua News Agency report
yesterday said not only demonstrated a more democratic atmosphere,
but also pushed forward judicial reform.
She Xianglin, from Hubei Province, is now a
household name after extensive reporting on his wrongful 11-year
imprisonment for murdering his wife, who was actually still alive,
after police tortured a confession from him. He received nearly
500,000 yuan (US$61,880) in compensation, including an amount for
the arrest of his mother for trying to help his case – she later
died while he was still in prison.
Nie Shubin, a young farmer in Hebei Province, was
executed in 1994 after being convicted of raping and murdering a
local woman. Earlier this year, however, a rape-and-murder suspect
apprehended by police in Henan Province confessed that he was the
perpetrator. Xu Jingxiang, imprisoned for 13 years after being
wrongly charged of robbery, was also found innocent.
Li Guifang, vice director of the All-China Lawyers
Association’s Criminal Committee, told Xinhua that the media's
exposure has become important and that "law enforcement organs have
become more open to criticism and supervision.”
The year also saw a series of reforms regarding the
death penalty. In October, the Supreme People's Court issued the
second five-year reform plan for people's courts, which said the
power to review death sentences would return to the Supreme
People's Court.
China's 1979 edition of the Criminal Procedural Law
regulated that all the death sentences with immediate execution
must be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. However, the
people's court organizational law, promulgated in 1983, stipulated
that some death sentences with immediate execution could be
reviewed by provincial higher people's courts.
A Supreme People's Court senior official said
judges must take a cautious attitude when giving death sentences,
according to Xinhua.
In December, the Supreme People's Court issued a
notice requiring local courts to open court sessions when hearing
death penalty appeals from next year in a bid to further ensure the
justice and openness of trial of such cases.
Chen Ruihua, Peking
University law professor, said the frequent occurrence of
confession extracted by torture reflected loopholes in the
country's judicial system and that law enforcement organs failed to
follow the principle of presumption of innocence.
The Article 93 of the Criminal Procedural Law
stipulates that criminal suspects should candidly answer questions
asked by police, but Xinhua reported that the right to keep silent
during interrogation is an important one well respected and
protected in many other countries.
Current Criminal Procedural Law also fails to
stipulate that a lawyer's presence in interrogation is necessary,
and Xinhua said most police refuse criminal suspects’ requests to
seek legal advice.
(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2005)