Public Opinions on Criminal Trials in China: A Comparative Study of Chinese College Students in the PRC and Hong Kong

The 1996 Criminal Procedure Law aimed to bring major changes to China’s criminal trial procedure by adding more adversarial components into trials and providing more protection to criminal defendants. Nevertheless, its effectiveness has been questioned continuously by scholars. Based on students’ evaluations of online criminal trials, this study was designed to explore public opinions on China’s criminal trial procedure. In addition, comparisons between mainland students and Hong Kong students, and between law students and non-law students were explored to examine potential differences between two legal systems and between students with different educational background and training. Data showed that the majority of students were satisfied with the three-phase trial procedure and the performance of major players in court. Nevertheless, they also identified a number of problems, all dovetailed with previous scholarly studies. Despite some nuanced differences, cross-group comparisons between the mainland sample and the Hong Kong sample and between law students and non-law students produced largely similar results.