Program helps poor obtain defense

Courts in Zhejiang province are testing a program that will offer free legal services to poor defendants in criminal cases.

Since the beginning of 2011, Zhejiang courts have appointed lawyers to defend 22,764 suspects who faced the possibility of being sentenced to more than three years in jail. 

That number was up by 130 percent from the two-year period starting in 2009, according to figures released on Thursday.

"If no defense lawyer is involved, the litigation process will be imbalanced, and it will be difficult to ensure fairness and justice," Qi Qi, president of Zhejiang High People's Court, said at a news conference in Beijing.

Ensuring more suspects are represented by defense lawyers will help protect their rights and prevent miscarriages of justice, he said.

Qi said Zhejiang courts have handled more than 2 million criminal cases since 2008 and only a small number of the suspects had hired lawyers.

He estimated high legal fees now prevent all but 30 percent of suspects from obtaining a legal defense.

In March 2011, the Zhejiang high court issued a notice stipulating a criminal suspect who is threatened with spending more than three years in prison and cannot afford to hire a legal defender will be represented free of charge by a court-appointed lawyer.

Free legal services will also be offered to those who are older than 60 and are not a principal suspect in a crime, or who come from ethnic groups and do not understand Mandarin, it said.

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, only suspects who fall into three categories — those threatened with life imprisonment, the disabled or minors — can receive free legal representation.

Qi said the new measures have done much to curb miscarriages of justice and have won support from the public in Zhejiang.

In a typical case, a court in the province's capital city, Hangzhou, decided in September to side with a defense lawyer and quash the criminal charges leveled against Sun Hailin, a suspect accused of illegally cutting down trees, Qi said.

"The lawyer prepared extensively before the court hearing and contended throughout the trial that Sun was innocent," Qi said. 

"After careful deliberation, the judges found some flaws in the evidence that the police had collected, and the court called on the prosecutor to withdraw the charges."

Sun, a rural villager, was poor enough to be represented by a court-appointed lawyer, Qi said.

He said courts in Zhejiang will work to strengthen communication with other judicial departments and lawyer associations in order to ensure criminal defendants have more accesses to obtain legal representation.

Li Guifang, deputy director of the criminal defense department of the All China Lawyers' Association, said the legal assistance practice helps to protect the rights of suspects.