中国应当构建什么样的刑事法律援助制度

在辩护率尤其委托辩护率持续低迷的情境下,逐步扩大刑事法律援助的适用范围以提高辩护率已成为维护被告人权利的重要进路。不久前公布的《关于修改〈中华人民共和国刑事诉讼法〉的决定》虽对此作出努力,将应负刑事责任的精神病人犯罪案件与可能判处无期徒刑的案件纳入法律援助范围,但基于实证调研的分析表明,这一进步的实践作用显然相当有限。综合考量诸方面因素,未来中国应逐步增加财政支持,建构起针对可能判处十年以上有期徒刑的重罪案件或普通程序审理的刑事案件法律援助制度,长远看甚至可考虑将其普适化。

What Kind of Criminal Legal Assistance System Should be Constructed in China

In the context of a sustained downturn of the rate of defense and the rate of entrusted defense in particular, gradually expanding the scope of application of criminal legal assistance with a view to increasing the rate of defense has become an importance approach to safeguarding the defendant's right. Although the newly released the Decision on Revising the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China has made efforts to this issue by including the crime committed by a mentally ill person who shall bear criminal liability and the crime that may be sentenced to life imprisonment into the scope of legal assistance, the analyses based on an empirical study demonstrate rather limited practical effort of this progress. Taking comprehensive factors into account, the future China should gradually increase financial support so as to construct a legal assistance system for serious cases may be sentenced to more than 10 years of fixed-term imprisonment or criminal cases trialed with ordinary procedure, which could be considered to be applied generally in the long term.