Comparative Law Workshops Held on Criminal Justice Reform

As Chinese legal reforms aim to provide more robust criminal trials, increasing strain is being placed on China’s judicial resources. To this end, the Chinese government has been experimenting with abridged procedures in cases where the defendant has admitted guilt and there are no facts in contention. The Paul Tsai China Center is working with academics and practitioners to better understand the positive impact and potential concerns of such procedures. As part of our continuing collaborations in this area, the Center recently concluded several events in China.

On November 24, Senior Fellow Jeremy Daum and Research Associate Jacob Clark hosted a comparative law session on U.S. plea negotiations and China’s pilot programs on analogous procedures at the Beijing King and Capital Law Firm’s Criminal Defense Research Center. Joining the discussion on Chinese pilot projects were a number of leading Chinese criminal procedure experts including Renmin University Professor Weidong Chen, China Law Society Scholar Minyuan Wang, China University of Political Science and Law Professor Chongyi Fan, former judge at the Supreme People’s Court Guijun Gao, and King and Capital Law Firm partner Wenchang Tian.

These Chinese experts were joined by Judge Katharine Hayden of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, seasoned criminal defense attorney Joseph Hayden, and Ye-ting Woo, an Assistant U.S. Attorney and current legal advisor at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The three experts presented on how each of their roles in the criminal process works together in the U.S. plea negotiation process to ensure that defendants’ guilty pleas are made voluntarily, intelligently, and knowingly.

On November 25, the three American experts and Tsai Center staff held a second event at China’s National Procurators College, a full-day training for over 100 veteran procurators hailing from almost every provincial-level government region in China. After a morning session providing background information on the U.S. system, procurators tried their hand at case scenario role-plays, with commentary provided by the American experts.

Subsequent events at China University of Political Science and Law and Renmin University Law School also drew crowds of graduate students working in this area. These events featured eminent Chinese scholars and experts such as Dean Bensen Li, Professor Yuguang Yang, Professor Zhiyuan Guo, Professor Lei Cheng, practicing attorney and professor Shuo Guo, and Supreme People’s Court Criminal Tribunal Judge Yongjun Xu.