Empirical Research on In-Court Judgement Pronouncement in Criminal Cases in China
About the Presentation
In Chinese Criminal Procedure, all judgments are declared publicly. There are two legal approaches to declare judgment: (1) “Declaring judgment on trial day” (Dangtingxuanpan), in which the court will announce result of conviction and sentencing with brief reason swiftly after trial, and (2) “declaring judgment on fixed day after trial day” (Dingqixuanpan), which indicates that court will announce entire judgment on fixed day after trial day.
Chinese Supreme People’s Court has been advocating judgment declaration on trial day among criminal cases since 1998, for purposes of promoting judicial transparency, efficiency and so on. Furthermore, this approach has been utilized as one measure to promote substantialization of court trial in the reform of making court trial the center in criminal procedure since 2014.
What measures has the Supreme Court been taking to improve the proportion of application of judgment declaration on trial day? How has the application of this declaration changed? Is it practical and appropriate to improve this approach? To what extent will it be helpful for the substantialization of court trial? This presentation will discuss questions above through empirical approach.
About the Speaker:
Ms. Weijing Huang is currently a Ph.D. candidate of the Sun Yat-sen University School of Law, where she also obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in law in 2014 and Master’s Degree in Procedure Law in 2016. Her current research focuses on criminal procedure law and judicial system. She has been working as a research assistant in Sun Yat-sen Reform of the Judicial System Research Center since 2016, where she participated in a number of empirical research projects focusing on evaluation and improvement of judicial reform in China especially in Guangdong Province, and she has published several academic papers in terms of false dispute actions and time limitation on civil procedural evidence submission in China. She has also worked as the 1st executive chief editor of Sun Yat-sen Youth Law Review, the teaching assistant of Criminal Moot Court Course for LL.M. students in Sun Yat-sen Law School and the administrative staff in Sun Yat-sen Legal Clinic. During her time at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, she will focus on the research on the governance transition of judicial confidence in China since 1978.