CRIMINAL PROCEDURE LAW

  Part One  General Provisions

    Chapter I     Aim and Basic Principles

    Chapter II    Jurisdiction

    Chapter III   Withdrawal

    Chapter IV    Defense and Procuration

    Chapter V     Evidence

    Chapter VI    Compulsory Measures

    Chapter VII   Incidental Civil Actions

    Chapter VIII  Time Periods and Service

    Chapter IX    Other Provisions

  Part Two  Filing a Case, Investigation and Initiation of Public Prosecution

    Chapter I     Filing a Case

    Chapter II    Investigation

      Section 1  General Provisions

      Section 2  Interrogation of the Criminal Suspect

      Section 3  Questioning of the Witnesses

      Section 4  Inquest and Examination

      Section 5  Search

      Section 6  Seizure of Material Evidence and Documentary Evidence

      Section 7  Expert Evaluation

      Section 8  Wanted Orders

      Section 9  Conclusion of Investigation

      Section 10 Investigation of Cases Directly Accepted by People’s

                 Procuratorates

    Chapter III   Initiation of Public Prosecution

  Part Three  Trial

    Chapter I     Trial Organizations

    Chapter II    Procedure of First Instance

      Section 1  Cases of Public Prosecution

      Section 2  Cases of Private Prosecution

      Section 3  Summary Procedure

    Chapter III   Procedure of Second Instance

    Chapter IV    Procedure for Review of Death Sentences

    Chapter V     Procedure for Trial Supervision

  Part Four  Execution

  Supplementary Provisions

    Article 1  This Law is enacted in accordance with the Constitution to
guarantee the correct implementation of the Criminal Law, punish crimes,
protect the people, ensure the national security and social public security
and maintain the social order of the socialist society.

    Article 2  The Criminal Procedure Law makes it the objective to ensure
the accurate and timely ascertainment through investigation of the criminal
facts, the proper application of the law and punishments of criminals, to
protect innocent people from undergoing criminal prosecution, to educate
citizens to observe law voluntarily and take an active part in the struggle
against criminal acts, to uphold the socialist legal system, to protect the
personal rights, property rights, democratic rights and other rights of
citizens, and to ensure the smooth progress of socialist construction.

    Article 3  The public security organs are responsible for investigation,
detention, execution of arrests and preliminary examination. The people’s
procuratorates are responsible for conducting procuratorial work, approving
arrests, investigating cases directly accepted by the procuratorates and
initiating public prosecutions. The people’s courts are responsible for
adjudication. Any other organs, organizations and individuals have no right
to exercise such power, unless otherwise provided by law.

    In conducting criminal proceedings, the people’s courts, the people’s
procuratorates and the public security organs must strictly observe this Law
and any relevant stipulations of other laws.

    Article 4  The state security organs shall, according to the stipulations
of the law, handle criminal cases endangering the state security and
exercise the functions and power identical with those of the public security
organs.

    Article 5  The people’s courts shall, according to the stipulations of the
law, exercise independently judicial power and the people’s procuratorates
shall, according to the stipulations of the law, exercise independently
procuratorial power, both of which shall be free of any interference by
administrative organs, social organizations and individuals.

    Article 6  In conducting criminal proceedings, the people’s courts, the
people’s procuratorates and the public security organs must rely on the
masses, base themselves on facts and take the law as the criterion. The law
applies equally to all citizens and no privilege whatsoever is permissible
before the law.

    Article 7  In conducting criminal proceedings, the people’s courts, the
people’s procuratorates and the public security organs shall divide the
responsibilities, coordinate their efforts and check each other to ensure the
correct and effective enforcement of the law.

    Article 8  The people’s procuratorates shall, according to law, exercise
legal supervision over criminal lawsuits.

    Article 9  Citizens of all nationalities shall have the right to use
their native spoken and written languages in court proceedings. The people’s
courts, the people’s procuratorates and the public security organs shall
provide interpretations or translations for any party to the court proceedings
who is not familiar with the spoken or written language commonly used in the
locality.

    Where people of a minority nationality live in a concentrated community
or where a number of nationalities live together in one area, court hearings
shall be conducted in the spoken language commonly used in the locality, and
judgments, notices and other documents shall be issued in the written
language commonly used in the locality.

    Article 10  In trying cases, the people’s courts shall apply the system
whereby the second instance is final.

    Article 11  Cases in the people’s courts shall be heard in public, unless
otherwise provided by this Law. The accused shall have the right to defense,
and the people’s courts shall have the duty to guarantee his/her defense.

    Article 12  No person shall be held guilty in absence of a judgment
rendered by the people’s court according to law.

    Article 13  In trying cases, the people’s courts shall apply the system
of people’s assessors taking part in trials in accordance with this Law.

    Article 14  The people’s courts, the people’s procuratorates and the
public security organs shall safeguard the procedural rights to which
participants in proceedings are enpost_titled according to law.

    In cases where a minor under the age of 18 commits a crime, the legal
representative of the criminal suspect or the accused may be notified to be
present at the time of interrogation and trial.

    Participants in proceedings shall have the right to file charges against
judicial, procuratorial and investigatory personnel whose acts infringe on
their citizens’ procedural rights or subject their persons to indignities.

    Article 15  Subject to one of the following instances, no criminal
responsibility shall be investigated, and if investigation has been
undertaken, the case shall be dismissed, or prosecution shall not be
initiated, or the hearing shall be terminated, or innocence shall be
declared:

    (1) If an act is obviously of minor importance, causing no serious harm,
and is therefore not deemed a crime;

    (2) If the limitation period for criminal prosecution has expired;

    (3) If an exemption of criminal punishment has been granted in a special
amnesty decree;

    (4) If the crime is to be handled only upon complaint according to the
Criminal Law, but there has been no complaint or the complaint has been
withdrawn;

    (5) If the criminal suspect or the accused is deceased; or

    (6) Other instances for which laws provide an exemption from
investigation of criminal responsibility.

    Article 16  Provisions of this Law shall apply to foreigners who commit
crimes for which criminal responsibility should be investigated.

    If foreigners with diplomatic privileges and immunities commit crimes for
which criminal responsibility should be investigated, those cases shall be
resolved through diplomatic channels.

    Article 18  Public security organs shall conduct investigations into
criminal cases unless otherwise stipulated by law.

    People’s procuratorates shall file cases and conduct investigations into
crimes regarding corruption, crimes regarding dereliction of duty committed
by public employees of the state, crimes regarding infringement on the
personal rights of, and on the democratic rights of, citizens committed by
staff personnel of state organizations by abusing their authority in respect
of illegal detention, extortion by torture of confession, retaliation and
false charges, and illegal rummage. Other cases involving serious crimes
committed by staff personnel of state organizations by abusing their
authority, may be filed with and investigated by people’s procuratorates,
subject to the decision made by the people’s procuratorate at provincial
level or above, when the people’s procuratorate concerned is required to
directly accept the case.

    Cases of private prosecution shall be accepted directly by the people’s
courts.

    Article 19  The basic people’s courts shall have jurisdiction as courts
of first instance over ordinary criminal cases; however, those cases which
fall under the jurisdiction of the people’s courts at higher levels as
stipulated by this Law shall be exceptions.

    Article 20  The intermediate people’s courts shall have jurisdiction as
courts of first instance over the following criminal cases:

    (1) Counter-revolutionary cases and cases endangering the national
security;

    (2) Ordinary criminal cases possibly resulting in a judgment of life
imprisonment or death penalty; and

    (3) Criminal cases involving crimes committed by foreigners.

    Article 21  The higher people’s courts shall have jurisdiction as courts
of first instance over major criminal cases that pertain to an entire
province (or municipality directly under the Central Government, or
autonomous region).

    Article 22  The Supreme People’s Court shall have jurisdiction as the
court of first instance over major criminal cases that pertain to the whole
nation.

    Article 23  When necessary, people’s courts at higher levels may try
criminal cases over which people’s courts at lower levels have jurisdiction
as courts of first instance. If a people’s court at a lower level considers
the circumstances of a criminal case in the first instance to be major or
complex and to necessitate a trial by a people’s court at a higher level, it
may request that the case be transferred to the people’s court at the next
higher level for trial.

    Article 24  A criminal case shall be under the jurisdiction of the
people’s court in the place where the crime was committed. If it is more
appropriate for the case to be tried by the people’s court in the place where
the accused resides, then that court may have jurisdiction over the case.

    Article 25  When two or more people’s courts at the same level have
jurisdiction over a case, it shall be tried by the people’s court that first
accepted it. When necessary the case may be transferred for trial to the
people’s court in the principal place where the crime was committed.

    Article 26  A people’s court at a higher level may instruct a people’s
court at a lower level to try a case over which jurisdiction is unclear and
may also instruct a people’s court at a lower level to transfer the case to
another people’s court for trial.

    Article 28  In any of the following situations, a member of the judicial,
procuratorial or investigatory personnel shall voluntarily withdraw, and the
parties to the case and their legal representatives shall have the right to
demand his withdrawal:

    (1) If he/she is a party or a near relative of a party to the case;

    (2) If he/she or a near relative of his/her has an interest in the case;

    (3) If he/she has served as a witness, expert witness or defender in the
current case or has represented a party in an incidental civil action; or

    (4) If he/she has any other relations with a party to the case that could
affect the impartial handling of the case.

    Article 29  Judicial, procuratorial and investigatory personnel shall not
be allowed to accept invitation to entertainment or gifts by the party and
the persons entrusted by him/her, or shall not be allowed to meet, in
violation of stipulations, the party and the persons entrusted by him/her.

    Judicial personnel, procuratorial personnel and investigatory personnel
who have violated the provisions in the preceding paragraph, shall according
to law be investigated into the legal responsibility. The party and his/her
legal representative have the right to apply for the withdrawal of the
personnel concerned.

    Article 30  The withdrawal of judicial, procuratorial and investigatory
personnel shall be determined respectively by the president of the court, the
chief procurator, and the head of a public security organ; the withdrawal of
the president of the court shall be determined by the court’s judicial
committee; and the withdrawal of the chief procurator or the head of a public
security organ shall be determined by the procuratorial committee of the
people’s procuratorate at the corresponding level.

    A member of the investigatory personnel may not suspend investigation of
a case before a decision is made on his/her withdrawal.

    In response to the decision on rejection of a party’s application for
withdrawal, the party and his/her legal representative may apply for a final
reconsideration.

    Article 32  In addition to the exercise by himself/herself of the right to
defense, the criminal suspect or the accused may entrust one or two persons
as his/her defenders, and following persons may be entrusted to be defenders:

    (1) Lawyers;

    (2) Persons recommended by a people’s organization or the unit by which
the criminal suspect or the accused is employed; and

    (3) Guardians, relatives and friends of the criminal suspect or the
accused.

     The persons undergoing criminal punishments or being deprived of or
restrained from personal liberty according to law shall not act as defenders.

    Article 33  The right of a criminal suspect to entrust defenders in
public prosecution accrues on the day when the case is submitted for
examination and prosecution. The accused in a private prosecution has the
right to entrust defenders at any time.

    The people’s procuratorate shall, within three days from the day of
receiving the file of the case submitted for examination and prosecution,
inform the criminal suspect of the right to entrust defenders. The people’s
court shall, within three days from the day of accepting the private
prosecution, inform the accused of the right to entrust defenders.

    Article 34  In case a public prosecutor appears in court to conduct a
public prosecution while the accused has not entrusted his/her defenders on
account of economic difficulty or for other reasons, the people’s court may
designate a lawyer duty-bound to provide legal assistance to defend him/her.

    In case the accused who is blind, deaf or mute or who is a minor, does
not entrust a defender, the people’s court shall designate a lawyer
duty-bound to provide legal assistance to defend him/her.

    In case the accused who may possibly be sentenced to death penalty
does not entrust a defender, the people’s court shall designate a lawyer
duty-bound to provide legal assistance to defend him/her.

    Article 35  The responsibility of a defender shall be to present,
according to the facts and the law, materials and opinions proving the
innocence of the criminal suspect or the accused, the pettiness of his/her
crime and the need for a mitigated punishment or exemption from criminal
responsibility, thus safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of the
criminal suspect or the accused.

    Article 36  The defense lawyer may, from the day of the examination by
the people’s procuratorate of the prosecution case, consult, make extracts
from and reproduce the litigation documents, documents of technical
examination, and may meet and correspond with the criminal suspect in custody.
Other defenders with the permission of the people’s procuratorate may consult,
make extracts from and reproduce the afore-said file documents, and may meet
and correspond with the criminal suspect in custody.

    The defense lawyer may, from the day of accepting the case by the people’s
court, consult, make extracts from and reproduce the file documents on
criminal facts accused of, and may meet and correspond with the accused in
custody. Other defenders with the permission of the people’s court may
consult, make extracts from and reproduce the afore-said file documents, and
meet and correspond with the accused in custody.

    Article 37  The defense lawyer may, with the consent of the witnesses
or other relevant units and individuals, acquire information related to the
case from them, or may apply to the people’s procuratorate, or the people’s
court for collecting or obtaining by order the evidence, or apply to the
people’s court for notifying witnesses to testify in the court.

    The defense lawyer, with the permission of the people’s procuratorate or
people’s court, may with the consent of the victim, his/her near relatives
or the witnesses provided by the victim, acquire information related to the
case from them.

    Article 38  The defense lawyer and other defenders shall not assist
the criminal suspects or the accused to conceal, destroy, frame up evidence
or act to collude with each other’s confessions, and shall not threaten,
entice witnesses to make alterations in testimony or give false testimony, and
shall not commit any acts which may cause interference in prosecution
activities conducted by judicial organs.

    Legal responsibility shall be investigated into for violating the
provisions of the preceding paragraph.

    Article 39  During a trial, the accused may refuse to have his/her
defender continue to defend him/her and may entrust his/her defense to
another defender.

    Article 40  The victim and his/her legal representative or near relatives
in public prosecution, the parties and their legal representatives in an
incidental civil action, have the right to entrust agents ad litem from the
day when the case is submitted for examination and prosecution. The
prosecutor and his/her legal representative in private prosecution, the
parties and their legal representatives in an incidental civil action have
the right to entrust agents ad litem at any time.

    The people’s procuratorates shall, within three days from the day of
receiving the file of the case submitted for examination and prosecution,
inform the victim and his/her legal representative or near relatives, the
parties and their legal representatives in an incidental civil action of the
right to entrust agents ad litem. The people’s courts shall, within three
days from the day of accepting a private prosecution, inform the prosecutor
and his/her legal representative, the parties and their legal representatives
in an incidental civil action of the right to entrust agents ad litem.

    Article 42  All facts that prove the true circumstances of a case shall
be evidence.

    There shall be the following six categories of evidences:

    (1) material evidence and documentary evidence;

    (2) testimony of witnesses;

    (3) statements of victims;

    (4) statements and exculpation of criminal suspects or the accused;

    (5) expert conclusions;

    (6) records of inquests and examination; and

    (7) video and audio materials.

    Any of the above evidence must be verified before it can be used as the
basis for deciding cases.

    Article 43  Judicial, procuratorial and investigatory personnel must, in
accordance with the legally prescribed process, collect various kinds of
evidence that can prove the guilt or innocence of the criminal suspect or the
accused and the gravity of his/her crime. It shall be strictly forbidden to
extort confessions by torture and to collect evidence by threat, enticement,
deceit or other unlawful means. Conditions must be guaranteed for all
citizens who are involved in a case or who have information about the
circumstances of a case to objectively and fully furnish evidence and, except
in special circumstances, they may be brought in to help the investigation.

    Article 44  The public security organ’s request for approval of arrest,
the people’s procuratorate’s bills of prosecution and the people’s court’s
written judgments must be faithful to the facts. The responsibility of anyone
who intentionally conceals the facts shall be investigated.

    Article 45  The people’s courts, the people’s procuratorates and the
public security organs are empowered to collect, obtain by order evidence
from relevant units and individuals. The relevant units and individuals shall
furnish the true evidence.

    Evidence involving state secrets shall be kept confidential.

    Anyone that falsifies, conceals or destroys evidence, regardless of which
side of a case he/she belongs to, must be investigated under the law.

    Article 46  In the decision of all cases, stress shall be laid on
evidence, investigation and study; credence shall not be readily given to
oral statements. The accused cannot be found guilty and sentenced to a
criminal punishment if there is only his/her statement but no evidence; the
accused may be found guilty and sentenced to a criminal punishment if
evidence is sufficient and reliable, even without his/her statement.

    Article 47  The testimony of a witness may be used as a basis in deciding
a case only after the witness has been questioned and cross-examined in the
courtroom by both sides, that is, the public prosecutor and victim as well as
the accused and defenders, and after the testimonies of the witnesses on
all sides have been heard and verified. If a court discovers through
investigation that a witness has intentionally given false testimony or
concealed criminal evidence, it shall handle the matter in accordance with
the law.

    Article 48  All those who have information about a case shall have the
duty to testify.

    Physically or mentally handicapped persons or minors who cannot
distinguish right from wrong or cannot properly express themselves shall not
be qualified as witnesses.

    Article 49  The people’s courts, people’s procuratorates and public
security organs shall guarantee the safety of witnesses and their near
relatives.

    Article 50  The people’s courts, the people’s procuratorates and the
public security organs may, according to the circumstances of a case, summon
by warrant the criminal suspect or the accused, or order him/her to be bailed
out for summons or reside under surveillance.

    Article 51  The people’s courts, people’s procuratorates and public
security organs may allow a criminal suspect or the accused to be bailed out
for summons or reside under surveillance, who is subjected to one of the
following conditions:

    (1) Being possibly sentenced to surveillance, criminal detention or
incidental punishment independently applicable; or

    (2) Being possibly sentenced to a punishment not less than fixed-term
imprisonment, but allowing him/her to be out on bail or reside under
surveillance may not possibly cause danger to the society.

    Bail out for summons and reside under surveillance