Acquittals of wrongly convicted defendants build public trust, senior judge says

In a bid to improve the protection of human rights, Chinese courts have been asked to make the hearing of cases a priority and increase efforts to avoid wrongful verdicts, an official of the top court said.

A report of judicial reforms, which was issued by the Supreme People's Court on Monday, said that 2,369 defendants had been found innocent and 23 wrongful verdicts were corrected over the past three years.

In 2015, the report said, 1,039 defendants were acquitted based on the principle in the current Criminal Procedure Law that no penalty should be given when a case has serious doubts.

Li Shaoping, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, said the fact that so many people have been declared innocent because of unclear facts or insufficient evidence reflects a key effort to improve human rights protection.

"Corrections of flawed judgments show our determination against wrongful convictions. The acquittals of defendants also build public trust and confidence in the law," Li said.

Meanwhile, defendants, including suspects and convicted criminals, are not required to wear detention or prison garb when they appear in court for trial or during appeals, in line with a new guideline issued by the top court in February last year.

The changes represent the implementation of judicial reforms raised by the central leadership in 2013 and make the justice system more visible, Li said.

To maintain judicial credibility, the top court also created an online platform where lawyers can appeal and track their cases.

A series of other reforms have been developed in the country's courts that aim to ensure that judges hear cases independently and improve the quality of their verdicts. Since May, when a new case registration system took effect, all courts have been obliged to file and process cases without delay, which means appeals that fulfill litigation requirements must be accepted immediately without prior review.

Under the reform, the courts filed 9.94 million cases from May to December, up 29.5 percent year-on-year. The acceptance of administrative disputes, including land expropriations and house demolitions, which were hard to file before, has been also alleviated, the report said.

In addition, 781 courts launched smartphone applications for litigants to enter lawsuits in 2015, providing more convenience for them, said Hu Shihao, director of the top court's judicial reform office.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn