Lawyers honored at Beijing seminar on criminal defense

A seminar on how lawyers overcome difficulties in criminal defenses was held in Beijing over the weekend.

At the seminar, held by China University of Political Science and Law on Sunday, 31 lawyers who last year helped clear 15 people from wrongful convictions were given awards.

Wang Xing was one of those lawyers. His client, Zhou Yuan, from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, who was originally given a suspended death sentence for intentional injury and committing indecent acts with women about 20 years ago, was pronounced not guilty in December on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Zhou, from Yining, was detained in 1997 after he was said to have intentionally harmed and committed indecent acts with several females in the area. A year later, he was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in the city’s intermediate people’s court. At the time, he was 27.

Wang said he made efforts to clear Zhou while helping his client with his appeal, such as by writing to the trial committee of the regional high people’s court in 2015 to speed up the appeal process. He noted that he did so because he was encouraged by the persistence of Zhou’s mother.

“A better understanding between defense lawyers and clients is necessary,” Wang said during the seminar, suggesting courts also should improve communications with lawyers.

Ruan Qilin, a criminal law professor at the university, applauded the efforts of the lawyers who were honored, saying correction of judicial miscarriage is a key step to improve the country’s rule of law.

He suggested criminal lawyers pay stronger attention to details in cases, “as courts will accept defense opinions when what they are full of is strong evidence and clear facts.”