For judicial fairness

Last year, 825 defendants were acquitted of the offenses they were charged with, according to the report the president of the Supreme People's Court delivered to the current session of the National People's Congress. During the same period, the Supreme People's Procuratorate urged the withdrawal of 25,211 cases that should not have entered the process of litigation, an increase of 25 percent over the previous year, according to the SPP's report to the session.

It is obvious that both the SPC and SPP are doing what they can to promote judicial fairness and legal justice. The legal propositions made by the SPP to rectify the improper coercive measures that public security departments adopted were more than 70,000 in 2013, an increase of 27 percent. And without the efforts of the prosecutors, more than 39,000 suspects would still be at large.

Just as the SPC president said in his report, assumption of innocence and careful examination of evidence must be maintained as the fundamental principles in judicial practice.

The total number of cases the supreme court handled in 2013 increased 3.2 percent over the previous year and the total cases its local counterparts handled increased by 7.4 percent. But the more cases they deal with, the more careful they should be in observing the fundamental principles of fairness and justice.

The SPC president cited as an example the notorious case of an uncle and nephew, who were charged with rape and murder and put behind bars for 10 years until they were proved to be innocent and acquitted in 2013, to show its determination to rectify any wrong cases.

That the total number of cases the SPP has helped to rectify increased last year speaks volumes for the work it is doing in this respect. But at the same time, it indicates that much is still to be desired when it comes to following the principles of assumption of innocence and examination of evidence.

In almost all the cases where there was a miscarriage of justice, confessions were obtained from suspects using illegal means and the courts have preferred the confessions to hard evidence in convicting suspects.

Both the SPC and SPP reports sent the message that they are trying hard to solve these problems and they are going to try even harder to deal with any malpractices that are detrimental to judicial fairness and legal justice.

(China Daily 03/11/2014 page9)