论死刑案件指定辩护的有效性——兼谈构建死刑案件指定辩护质量标准

死刑刑罚具有不可逆转性,死刑案件指定辩护的有效性是法治从形式正义走向实质正义的必然要求。然而指定辩护中有效辩护的保障机制及无效辩护的现实之巨大反差,使得完善我国死刑案件指定辩护制度成为亟待解决的问题。实现死刑案件指定辩护的有效性需要实行死刑案件指定辩护律师资格认定制、设置辩护质量的底线标准、设置程序后果。     

我国指定辩护程序的改革与完善——从保障被告人权利的角度

刑事诉讼中,面对国家控诉机关的追诉,被告人处于弱势地位,在强大的国家权力面前,其权利存在被侵害的极大风险。而辩护律师犹如被告人的眼睛和嘴巴,对于实现控辩平衡,保障被告人的权利起着至关重要的作用。特别是当出现被告人是盲、聋、哑人,未成年人,或者可能被判处死刑而没有委托辩护人等需要指定辩护的情形时,被告人迫切需要有能力、敢仗义执言的律师为其辩护。而作为产生辩护律师的指定辩护程序此时显得尤为重要。然而不幸的是,我国的指定辩护程序存在非常严重的问题,导致指定辩护的功能受损,获得指定辩护的权利甚至成为被告人一项虚置的…     

我国近年来刑事辩护制度实施报告

近年来,刑事辩护制度的新发展主要包括刑事辩护全覆盖的试点工作、认罪认罚制度中刑事辩护形式的变化、程序性辩护策略的兴起、有效辩护理念的深入以及《法律援助法》对刑事辩护的推动等.当前刑事辩护制度实施中的问题可概括为六个方面,即辩护律师与值班律师的分界、委托辩护律师与法援律师的"冲突"、辩护律师阅卷权与调查取证权的保障、庭前...     

指定辩护范围扩张之实效性考察——基于试点城市抢劫罪的实证研究

随着刑事案件律师辩护全覆盖的推进，指定辩护在刑事诉讼中的覆盖范围显著扩张，对其实效性的考察将同时具有理论检视和政策评估的双重意义。从首批八个试点地区的抢劫罪切入的实证研究发现，大部分地区的指定辩护率在试点之后大幅上升。然而，倾向得分匹配的定量分析揭示，指定辩护律师无论是在审前强制措施的适用，还是在量刑结果上，都没有显著改善被告人的处遇。在部分试点地区，指定辩护律师的辩护效果显著弱于委托辩护的律师。质性访谈的结果揭示，指定辩护律师介入案件的时间过晚、律师的报酬激励不足以及辩护经验和技巧的相对匮乏，都一定程度上阻碍了指定辩护中辩护效果的实现。同时，刑事案件律师辩护全覆盖之后法律援助案件激增，进一步加剧了指定辩护中人力、物力和财力上的紧张程度。上述实证研究发现能够为新时期指定辩护制度的完善提供“循证式”的政策参考。     

美国无效辩护制度及其启示

无效辩护制度是有效辩护制度良好运行的必要保障。通过对美国无效辩护制度的考察，可以看到，无效辩护制度在一定程度上提高了刑事辩护的质量。我国辩护制度运行状况堪忧，委托辩护质量不高，指定辩护在司法实践中流于形式。就目前情况看，在所有案件中借鉴无效辩护制度的时机还不成熟，而率先在死刑案件的审判过程中，将无效辩护制度应用于委托辩护与指定辩护，不仅可行，而且紧急。但是，因为司法传统以及刑事诉讼制度的差异，对于无效辩护的判断标准、证明责任、救济程序、律师责任的承担等，我国应采取不同于美国的思路。     

浦东率先在上海为刑事被告人指定公设辩护律师

由于经济拮据、文化水平低等原因，近七成刑事被告人没有委托律师，而符合法律援助条件获得指定辩护律师的不到2％。为了让更多的被告人拥有辩护律师、享受到公平的律师辩护权，近日，浦东新区法院和司法局率先在上海市试点为刑事被告人指定公设辩护律师，不设年龄、收入等“门槛”，争取实现刑事法律援助全覆盖。     

重构未成年人刑事法律援助审查标准

自我国建立法律援助制度以来，未成年人刑事法律援助一直是我国未成年人法律援助的重点，对加强未成年人的司法保护起了重要的作用。然而，我国未成年人刑事法律援助审查标准不一致，导致法院指定辩护案件成为未成年人刑事法律援助的主要来源，而处在侦查阶段和审查起诉阶段的未成年人较少获得法律援助。     

刑事辩护的风险防控探析

刑事辩护是司法制度中的重要一部分。刑事诉讼制度主要强调嫌疑人以及被告人在没有被法律程序判决有罪前,仍属于无罪,享有刑事辩护以及诉讼的权利,可以委托辩护律师或者其他辩护人参与到刑事诉讼程序中。我国公民通过刑事辩护权来维护自身的合法权益。因此刑事辩护对查明案件的真相以及实现正义都具有积极作用。文章分析了刑事辩护律师在受理刑事案件时遇到的风险防控措施。     

“任意”指定辩护欠妥

我国的《刑事诉讼法》第34条第1款规定:“公诉人出庭公诉的案件,被告人因经济困难或其他原因没有委托辩护人的,人民法院可以指定承担法律援助义务的律师为其提供辩护。”学理上称之为任意指定辩护,其特点是对于被告人因经济困难或其他原因没有委托辩护人的案件,法院有是否指定辩护律师的自由裁量权,不指定辩护律师亦不违反程序规定,故而不少基层法院对此类情况没有指定承担     

刑事辩护准入制度与有效辩护及普遍辩护

刑事辩护在国家法治建设与人权保障中的应然重要性与我国允许非律师承担辩护职责的实然性之间存在明显反差.实证调查证明,无论是从律师的数量上还是辩护质量上,在我国取消非律师担任辩护人的规定,建立刑事辩护准入制度的时机和条件已经成熟.这一制度既可实现有效辩护的目的,也不违背普遍辩护的要求.故应当在现实国情允许的情况下,从死刑案件开始,分步骤、分层次地设立刑事辩护的准入制度;同时,设置与准入制度配套的管理监督机制、惩戒机制以及退出机制,并从辩护律师执业环境和刑事辩护收费制度等方面为刑事辩护准入制度的构建与实施营造良好的制度运行环境.     

Assisting an Accused to Represent Himself: Appointment of Amici Curiae as the Most Appropriate Option

Given the proportion and complexity of international criminalproceedings, allowing an accused to represent himself beforean international criminal court might render his defence ineffective,even if the accused is a lawyer himself. If international criminalcourts are not willing to have the accused bear the consequencesof his choice of self-representation, the measure of appointingexperienced Defence Counsel as amici curiae to make legal contributionsto add to the Judges’ informed decisions seems to entailfewer undesirable ethical consequences for counsel than beingadded as ‘standby counsel’ or ‘court assignedcounsel’. Through occupying a neutral position and notbeing required to represent the accused, the amici's input maybalance the flow of defence and prosecution arguments and thuscontribute to the fairness of international criminal trials.The measure of appointing standby counsel or court assignedcounsel to an accused who wishes to represent himself appearsless appropriate, especially from a legal professional perspective.     

The Social Organization of Legal Services to Indigent Defendants

This article draws together materials portraying appointed counsel services in a variety of jurisdictions to illustrate the role of court organization in shaping legal services to indigent defendants. Many criminal courts are bifurcated into preliminary hearing and trial courts. Legal representation of indigents is frequently organized to parallel these stages. As a result, indigent defendants receive defense services from a succession of different lawyers at different stages of their cases. This occurs in three ways. First, some defendants legally eligible for appointed counsel at the inception of their cases have counsel appointed for them only at the trial court after initially employing their own counsel at the preliminary hearing. The dual court system encourages such one-stage representation by private lawyers by facilitating their withdrawal between stages of a case. Second, indigents may also have different private lawyers appointed to represent them at different stages because judges, interested in efficiently running their court calls, desire that particular lawyers represent indigents in their courtrooms. Finally, defender offices often assign different lawyers to different stages as a result of both the demands by judges that defenders be assigned exclusively to their courtrooms and the costs of delivering continuous legal services in a tiered judicial system. For indigent defendants the sequential system of representation may adversely affect the quality of case preparation and undermine a sound attorney-client relationship.     

Can Us-Type Court Management Approaches Work In Civil Law Systems? Experiences From The Balkans And Beyond

The benefit of applying modern management approaches to court operations to ensuring access to justice, timely and transparent dispositions, and increased public trust in courts is recognized in many countries. In the USA, the art of applying modern management techniques to court operations has evolved over the past 30 years into a now solidly established profession. Since the underlying principles and techniques of modern court management, such as case flow management, goal-oriented performance measures, workload assessments, customer surveys, etc., are derived from general management concepts they are not tied to a particular legal system or framework and can be successfully applied in non-US systems if they are properly adjusted. Interested in the positive results of court management in the USA, researchers and practitioners in several European countries have been looking at the applicability of the approaches used in the USA to improve their own ability to manage court processes more efficiently.Since court management has become a main staple of reforming court operations in the USA, it is not surprising that US-funded development assistance in the Balkan states and other countries often involves transferring court management US-style into the newly evolving democracies as part of rule of law or commercial sector development assistance. These projects frequently introduce, among others, case flow management techniques that sometimes seem to be in conflict with underlying legal principles or procedural laws, and often defy the local legal culture. The US-funded assistance programs are often introduced parallel to efforts funded by European and other donors, which may take and suggest different approaches to the host country. As a result, confusion and insecurity about which approaches are appropriate for a particular country can arise and impede much needed reforms or lead to legislative and regulatory changes that do not mesh well or even conflict with other parts of the legal framework.This article reviews the role of US-based court management approaches in recent court reform efforts under way in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia and, in light of lessons learned there and in other countries, assesses the reform processes applied and their status. It also outlines how these court management approaches fit into non-US court systems, how they can be adjusted according to individual country needs and what the main obstacles are that such reform efforts generally face.     

也论内地和香港相互承认和执行法院判决

内地和香港相互承认和执行法院判决是两地司法协助中的一项重要内容,具有重大的现实研究价值。内地和香港相互承认和执行法院判决是在一国两制下的不同法系间的区际司法协助,不同的社会体制、法律文化乃至不同的司法理念和体制决定了应该根据《基本法》中有关条款和两地的各自立法对符合条件的内地和香港的民商事案件按照程序相互承认并加以执行。     

重新审视律师在场权:一种消极主义面向的可能性——以侦查讯问期间为研究节点

经过《刑事诉讼法》三次修改,中国的刑事辩护制度在立法上取得重大进展,基本上已与国际规则和标准接轨,律师的各项权利不断丰富发展,日益完善。但时至今日,唯独律师在场权没有落实。西方法治国家均建立了讯问时律师在场权,并呈现出积极和消极两种模式。随着"以审判为中心"的诉讼制度改革开展、认罪认罚从宽制度入法,律师在场权的问题再一次被提出,其在我国已具备现实可行的条件和契机。鉴于制度本土化的诉求,应当考虑借鉴消极面向的基本范式,即以监督和事后反馈的方式保障犯罪嫌疑人的诉讼权利不受侵犯。同时,制度改革需要详细构建侦讯期间律师在场权的适用范围、供给来源、权利类型和流程设计等规则。     

Defending the Accused: The Impact of Legal Representation on Criminal Trial Outcomes in Victoria,Australia 1861–1961

Access to legal representation by accused felons was entrenched as part of the adversarial system from the early nineteenth century, but a substantial minority of defendants remained undefended at superior court level well into the twentieth century. Using a sample of criminal trials collected across a crucial hundred-year period that saw the development of incipient legal assistance schemes, this article seeks to examine what effect the presence of defence counsel had on individual trial results. It is shown that there was a significant association between defence status and a variety of outcomes, including pleas, verdicts, trial length, bail status and sentencing. This relationship was to some extent affected by the specific offence with which the accused was charged, but remains evident across various other factors, including defendant ethnicity, sex, occupation and age, and lawyer assigned to the case. The results suggest that representation was highly desirable for defendants throughout this period.     

论治理商业贿赂的国际司法协助制度

跨国的商业贿赂往往构成犯罪,并且其危害性更大。司法协助是通过国际合作治理商业贿赂的重要举措之一。明定我国司法协助的主管机关,健全我国有关治理商业贿赂国际司法协助的国内法,完善我国司法协助的法制原则,改进我国刑事司法协助中的调查取证制度,以建立科学有效的治理商业贿赂的国际司法协助制度。     

International mutual legal assistance in criminal law made redundant: A comment on the Belgian Yahoo! case

This article offers a critical examination of the court judgements in a recent Belgian case against Yahoo!. It examines the challenges related to the establishment of jurisdiction for Internet-based services and the role that procedures of mutual legal assistance should play. Belgian law obliges providers of “electronic communications services/electronic communications networks” to cooperate with Belgian law-enforcement authorities and to handle over communication and personal data. Although the terms are derived from the EU Electronic Communications Regulatory Framework, a much broader interpretation to them was finally given by the Belgian Supreme Court. Seemingly this implies that, from now on, a US-based company such as Yahoo! is, at least under Belgian law, under a legal obligation to directly comply with an order issued by Belgian law-enforcement authorities.     

论香港与内地法院间对判决的相互承认及执行

在香港回归以前,由于国内判决只享有"外国判决"的地位,因此在香港只能按照普通程序执行。香港回归以后,根据《外地判决(交互强制执行)条例》所订登记制度的规定,却不能适用于内地判决。基于此,讨论了在大陆和香港两套法律体制并存的情况下,怎样承认及执行双方的民事判决,以及由此所遇到的困难和产生的问题。深入研究了最高人民法院的《关于内地与香港特别行政区法院相互委托送达民商事司法文书的安排》以及最高人民法院与香港律政司签署的《关于内地与香港特别行政区相互执行仲裁裁决的安排》两份文件,并通过与其他国家处理国内区际司法协助的做法以及香港回归以前所适用的国际条款作比较,推导和分析了回归后国内与香港特区之间在司法协助问题上所应遵循的一般原则。