On December 1, 2024, the semi-final of the 5th PCG Criminal Moot Court Competition was successfully held at Beijing Zhengda Center. The competition was co-sponsored by the Higher Institute of Criminal Defense of Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Beijing Yingke Law Firm, and co-organized by Beida Faber Academy. Lawyer Liang Yali, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm and director of King&Capital Criminal Defense Center, was invited to participate in the event and act as an expert judge.
Scene of the event
The semi-finals were synchronized online and offline, nearly 100 lawyers from all over the country watched the competition live, and 100,000+ people witnessed the competition online. The host, Mr. Zhang Xinwen, said that the PCG Criminal Moot Court Competition has been held for five consecutive years since its inception in 2020, and has set up a professional growth stage for 308 participating teams and more than 1,000 young lawyers, and has always been committed to the long-term development of young lawyers. After fierce competition, this semi-final welcomed 10 finalist teams.
Commentary by Ms. Alice Liang
After the competition, ten expert judges, including Mr. Liang Yali, commented on each game in turn. Among them, Mr. Liang Yali and Mr. Xin Ming commented on the third match.
Liang lawyer first in the overall standardization and professionalism of the contestants made a positive, and reminded the contestants to pay attention to the public prosecutor, the defender and the defender and the defendant is one, should be divided into responsibilities, cooperate with each other, can not do their own work. At the professional level, Mr. Liang made a detailed comment on the questioning session and shared the high-level questioning skills in practice. First, in the questioning before the need to clarify the questioning object of the “camp”, for their own camp of the questioning object, should be set up open questions, to give the questioner a larger space to answer, if the other camp, such as the prosecutor to the defendant to ask questions, should be set up to close the question, in order to avoid the defendant based on the antagonism and avoiding questions or answering the question in an unintelligible way. Correspondingly, the defense should also defend the defendant's legitimate rights and interests, the need for timely opposition to the prosecutor to ask questions unrelated to the case. Secondly, in addition to focusing on the proof content of the evidence, the evidence should also focus on the evidence of the ability to prove the problem, that is, the form of the source of the evidence, the type of evidence, the evidence presented in the way the problem. Third, in the application for witnesses, if the witness testifies in their favor, generally do not apply for their appearance, to avoid the other side through the questioning to overturn the favorable testimony.
For the case itself, Mr. Liang commented on the focus of the contestants' debate and made a few additions. The prosecutor mainly around the upstream criminal facts, coupons for gold jewelry behavior and cui xin subjective intention to start the argument, the defense also made a corresponding response, pointed out that the coupon itself has been the company's money laundering of legitimate property and cui xin on the legitimacy of the coupon with or without the possibility of questioning, does not exist knowingly intentional. Liang additional lawyer added a few points of argumentation, such as the purchase of the gold jewelry there is a real life needs, and does not have the circulation, custom cycle for two months does not have the urgency of the conversion of the proceeds of crime and its proceeds, and how to determine the Cui Xin subjective whether intentional, his mother's testimony that “Yang Jia and the company for the system of Ponzi scheme Whether the testimony of his mother that “Yang Jia and the company is a Ponzi scheme” can be recognized as a subjective inference and inadmissible and so on.
Finally, the lawyer summarized the idea of money laundering crime, first of all, clear is from money laundering or his money laundering, and secondly, consider from money laundering and his money laundering constitute a common crime, the specific elements, need to explain the existence of upstream criminal facts, the specific concealment behavior, the object of the act, as well as the amount of money laundering in order to complete the evaluation of the act. If meet the constitutive elements, whether through the criminal law proviso that belongs to the “circumstances are significantly less serious, less harmful” and then out of the crime. In addition, in the application of law need to pay attention to legal norms and judicial interpretations of the effectiveness of the problem. Mr. Liang's comments are both rich practical experience and high theoretical depth, which made the contestants and the audience gain a lot.
The judges also highly appreciated the performance of the semi-finalists. The judges made all-round in-depth comments on the fact summarization ability, focus grasping ability, evidence analysis ability and trial presentation ability of the contestants, and expressed unique insights and authoritative explanations on the evidence, substantive and procedural issues embedded in the cases, which further enhanced the professional content of the Moot Court Competition, and brought valuable theoretical nourishment and skills sharing to the contestants and the audience.
Group photo of expert judges
At the same time, the judges also expressed their expectations for the finals and put forward constructive suggestions on the subsequent performance of the contestants and precautions. The wonderful comments of the expert jury with high level and in-depth insights put the finishing touches to the competition and benefited every audience.
