Investigation And Research On The Full Coverage Of Lawyers’ Defense In District A Of City C

Defense is an important system of criminal procedure and lawyers are an indispensable subject of criminal defense.Their participation can not only regulate judicial acts and supervise judicial activities,but also is an indispensable cornerstone of strengthening judicial protection of human rights.The criminal defense rate in China has been low for a long time.Under the background of deepening the reform of the judicial system,increasing the rate of lawyers’ defense in criminal cases has become an important indicator to test the effect of the reform of the criminal procedure system with trial as the center.In October 2017,the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued the Measures on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Covering all Criminal Cases with Lawyers,and tried to cover all criminal cases with lawyers in eight provinces and cities,such as Beijing.The Measures had required that the court should notify appointed lawyers to provide defense for all cases of first instance,second instance and retrial where the defendant had the lawyer and the ordinary procedure was applied,and the lawyer on duty should provide legal assistance in cases where summary and immediate judgement procedures were applicable.This meant that at the trial stage,as long as the defendant had not have a lawyer,the state should assign a lawyer or a lawyer on duty to the defendant according to the applicable trial procedures for the case.This actually implied two meanings.Firstly,the defendant must have a lawyer or a lawyer on duty,which was a formal requirement.Secondly,the lawyer’s defense obtained by the defendant should be effective,otherwise it had no practical significance,which was a substantive requirement.By October 2022,the pilot work had been carried out for five years.Because the full coverage of lawyers’ defense was only pilot in the trial stage,the research object of this paper was also limited to this.From public media reports,it could be seen that many regions had achieved 100% coverage of lawyers’ defense and the pilot work had achieved satisfactory results.In fact,the specific situation of the pilot work in various regions has not been clear at present and the empirical analysis researches were very rare.The identity of the lawyer on duty has been still controversial.Whether the experience of different regions could be used for reference,whether the full coverage of lawyers’ defense had truly been fully implemented,and how regional experiences could be learned need to be studied,which need to be studied.In the paper the author had used three research methods,such as field observation,data analysis and character interviews.By collecting data,sorting out cases and analyzing the current situation of the People’s Court of District A,City C,which had been in the pilot area,the author has collated and summarized relevant data,and communicated and discussed with frontline case-handling personnel such as judges and lawyers at the same time.Based on these,the author has concluded that the lawyer’s defense in District A of City C had not truly achieved full coverage,both formally and substantively because of comprehensive influence of the various factors,such as the negative performance of the court under the pressure of case trial,the consideration and maintenance of self-interest among various departments,lack of rationality about the existing model of legal aid,limited subjective initiative of lawyers themselves,psychological expectations formed by the defendant before trial and so on.In response,the author has proposed measures to strengthen the implementation of the full coverage of lawyers’ defense from a holistic perspective,including urging the implementation of the interpretation obligation of case handling agencies,optimizing the work connection of various departments,improving the legal aid system,refining the evaluation mechanism,increasing financial investment,expanding diversified funding sources,improving the duty lawyer system,standardizing work processes,strengthening the construction of the lawyer team,and enhancing defense level,from a holistic perspective.