Construction of Guilt in China

Yu Mou is Assistant Professor at SOAS, University of London.

• 1. Introduction I. Criminal Injustice in China II. Truth as Objectivity, Constructions and Rhetoric III. Bureaucracy, Ideology and Performance Indicators in Chinese Criminal Justice 2. Researching the Chinese Criminal Justice System I. Outline of Fieldwork II. The Social Makeup of the Suspects 3. The Construction of the Police Cases I. The Context: The Chinese Police and their Role in the Criminal Justice System II. The Official Version of Truth III. Aligning Confession Evidence with the Official Version of the Truth IV. Interviewing Witnesses V. Crime Scene Identification VI. The Defence Predicament in the Investigative Phase VII. Conclusion 4. Reviewing the Police Case I. The Soviet Legacy and the Intricacy of the Supervisory Power of the Procuratorate II. The Role of the Prosecutor III. Overseeing the Police Case IV. Conclusion 5. Pre-trial Decisions Concerning Prosecution I. The Discretionary Power Not to Prosecute II. Decisions on the Modes of Trial III. Constructing the Defence Case at the Pre-trial Prosecution Review StageIV. Conclusion 6. Trials without Witnesses I. Hollowed Criminal Trials and Criminal Case Dossiers II. The Judge–Prosecutor Relationship III. Trial without Witnesses IV. Managerialism and Abbreviated Trials V. The Full Adjudication: Trial without Witnesses VI. Conclusion 7. Concluding Remarks

This path-breaking empirical account of Chinese criminal justice takes the reader inside the offices of the public prosecutor to understand the ways in which criminal cases are constructed against suspects – first by the police, reinforced by the prosecutor and endorsed by the judiciary. Rules and procedures set out a legal rhetoric of independent prosecutorial oversight, but in practice, prosecutors are required to confirm police accounts and are rewarded for high conviction rates. Underpinned by extensive fieldwork and presented thoughtfully for the non-Chinese law expert, this is an important piece of scholarship within the field of comparative criminal law and justice.