Recently, the Supreme People's Court ("SPC") has issued the Implementing Opinions on Fully Promoting the Trial-oriented Reform of Criminal Procedure System (the "Opinions").
The Opinions, comprised of 33 articles, include five sections respectively titled as, among other things, "regulating the pre-trial preparation procedure and ensuring the centralized trial of cases by courts", "regulating ordinary trial procedures and ensuring fair judgement according to law" and "regulating evidence recognition procedures and earnestly preventing any wrongful conviction". The Opinions require efforts to implement rules for excluding illegal evidences in a strict manner, further specify the scope of illegal evidences, push ahead the implementation of a system to check whether the interrogation is legal before the investigation is concluded, and better procedures for investigating the legality of evidences in the phase of court trial; efforts shall also be made to improve the lawyer defense system, expand the scope of legal assistance gradually, and secure attorneys' litigation-related rights during the court trial, such as asking questions, questioning evidences, argument and defense; the principle of innocent until proved guilty shall be put in place in a severe manner, such that any defendant in a case shall be lawfully acquitted if the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction, and the criteria for suspected crimes shall be understood accurately based on the circumstance of the case.