Recently, the Supreme People's Court ("SPC") and the Ministry of Justice ("MOJ") have jointly released the Circular on Expanding the Coverage of the Pilot Program on Enabling Lawyers to be Engaged in the Full Process of Defense in Criminal Cases (the "Circular").
The Circular states that, the first batch of eight provinces (municipalities directly under the Central Government), including Beijing, shall take a more active approach to this pilot program, and expand the program across all regions under their respective jurisdiction, based on experience gained from work conducted at the initial stage of this program and in consideration of local actual situations. Meanwhile, the Circular requires that, other 23 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps shall lose no time in making preparations in all aspects and officially kick off the pilot program locally in January 2019. Also, the Circular clearly states that, during the ongoing pilot program, further efforts shall be made in all regions to have organs in charge of handling cases fulfill their notification obligations. More specifically, these organs are obligated to inform suspects and defendants of their rights to engage defense lawyers, or inform defendants without defense lawyers of their rights to free legal assistance and legal aid; they may issue specific notices if conditions permit, and are required to include the notification, if orally made, in written records and have suspects and defendants confirm these records with their signatures.