FCC club lunch with Professor CHEN Guangzhong

Speaker: Professor CHEN Guangzhong
Tenured Professor of China University of Political Science and Law

Topic: How China Revised its Criminal Procedure Code

Rule of law has seldom been more frequently in the news from China than right now. As it happens, the National People’s Congress approved on March 14 a far-reaching set of changes as a lengthy amendment to the country’s criminal procedure code. The key contents of the amendment include:

I. Adding “respecting and safeguarding human rights”;

II. Reforming and improving legal defenses;

III. Improving the evidence-obtaining system, establishing rules to eradicate illegal evidence;

IV. Improvement in the conditions for arrests, strictly restricting cases in which family members are not notified;

V. Improving procedures for interrogating suspects and the accused during the investigation;

VI. Adding provisions on adopting special investigation measures;

VII. Improving the review and approval of death penalty;

VIII. Adding four special categories of litigation procedures, involving e.g. juvenile criminal cases.

It appears that important progress has been made in the amendment this time although a few shortcomings still exist. Professor Chen will discuss the amended code at the lunch.

Professor CHEN graduated from Beijing University in 1952. He is one of the key figures behind the drafting of the Criminal Procedure Law in China . He is a lifelong professor and also the honorary president of the Procedural Law Institute.

This talk is made possible through coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong .