On March 29, the Legal Aid Center of the Ministry of Justice held a symposium on the work of death penalty review legal aid lawyers. At this meeting, the Ministry of Justice honored the lawyers who participated in the legal aid work of death penalty review from 2022 to 2023, and Zhang Dianlong, a lawyer from Beijing King&Capital Law Firm, was honored for his outstanding performance in this work.
At the symposium, Mr. Zhang Dianlong put forward his opinions and suggestions on some practical problems encountered in the legal aid for death penalty review.
Firstly, it is too much work for lawyers to take photos with cell phones to read the papers, and it is suggested that the Supreme Court can provide electronic papers to save the time cost for lawyers to read the papers.
Secondly, it is to establish a system for lawyers from outside Beijing to read papers in other places. Currently involved in the death penalty review of legal aid lawyers outside Beijing lawyers account for the majority, if all the implementation of on-site reading, not only to those outside Beijing lawyers to bring higher time costs, and the Ministry of Justice will also have to bear a considerable amount of lawyers travel expenses.
In addition, aid lawyers in the second meeting with the defendant, should also be allowed to implement remote video form. Currently, lawyers handling death penalty review legal aid cases still meet once as a principle, and multiple times as an exception; if there is a genuine need to meet a second time, a report must be submitted to the Legal Aid Center for instructions. In the course of their work, Supreme Court review judges often conduct remote interrogations by video, and for the sake of saving funds for handling cases, it is recommended that the Ministry of Justice coordinate with the public security organs and the Supreme Court to realize the second remote video interview as soon as possible, to further safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the defendants and improve the quality of the work of lawyers handling legal aid for death penalty review cases.
Since January 1, 2022, China's death penalty review cases are also included in the scope of legal aid, many experts praised this move to open up the criminal defense full coverage of the process of the “last kilometer”, and pointed out that the death penalty review cases due to a certain degree of specificity, so the quality of criminal defense lawyers have to have higher requirements. A number of lawyers of Beijing King&Capital Law Firm were strictly selected by the Ministry of Justice to be selected as the legal aid lawyers' pool for death penalty review, and they have handled a large number of legal aid cases, which have been reported frequently, and have achieved good social and legal effects.
