原声播报97：指派辩护与委托辩护之争频现，立法有回应

China Mulls Law to Ensure Defendant’s Right to Choose Own Attorney

指派辩护与委托辩护之争频现，立法有回应

【文中生词】

attorney 律师；代理人

defendant 被告人

legal aid 法律援助

logistics 后勤

van 厢式货车

【词汇延展】

acquittal 无罪开释

appellant 上诉人

arraignment 传讯

bail 保释

habeas corpus 人身保护权

【单词详解】

mull

v. 研磨；思索

to grind or mix thoroughly; think about (a fact, proposal, or request) deeply and at length

关联词汇

grit 砂砾

ruminate 沉思

muller 研磨机

mull over 仔细考虑

例句

I need some time to mull it over before making a decision.

在作出决定之前我需要一些时间来认真琢磨一下。

As politicians mull such questions in the capital, workers across the state are confronting their own dilemmas.

州首府的政客思考这些问题时，全州的工人正在面对自己的困境。

infringe

v. 侵犯

to limit sb’s legal rights

关联词汇

run afoul of 与…冲突

contravene 抵触；违反

encroach 蚕食；侵占

impinge 妨碍；侵犯

infringe on 侵害

例句

They rob us, they infringe our rights, they kill us.

他们劫掠我们，他们侵犯我们的权利，他们屠杀我们。

They said that compulsory identity cards would infringe civil liberties.

他们说强制办理身份证会侵犯公民的自由。

Speaking of legal protections, my top story is all about how China is mulling a law to ensure that defendants have a right to choose their own attorney.

So, what’s going on?

Right, so this draft law aims to better guarantee defendants’ rights to their own attorney, and that is when defendants are able to afford one. This all comes amid controversy over cases where the authorities have pushed defendants to use legal aid lawyers to handle criminal trials instead of hiring their own attorney.

Now, obviously this seems problematic. As one member of the top legislature’s standing committee put it, such a practice deprives the defendant of the right to a defence and is inconsistent with the spirit of the rule of law and the requirements of procedural law. 

And for those of you who may be wondering, legal aid is the provision of free legal assistance or legal representation for people who have financial difficulty in hiring an attorney in civil or criminal cases. China enacted regulations on legal aid in 2003, but the country has not formulated a specific law on it.

Very illuminating. So, can you give us any examples of when defendants have been pushed to use legal aid lawyers?

Yeah sure. So some of our listeners may remember quite a disturbing incident where a woman had hired a van from the logistics startup Lalamove when she was moving to a new home. However, after she got into the van and the driver took off, things then went horribly wrong. The woman ended up dying after she apparently jumped out of the vehicle while it was driving.

The driver, surnamed Zhou, was arrested on suspicion of causing her death through negligence. Caixin has learned that his family hired lawyers to defend him, but the attorneys were actually denied access to their client when they applied to meet him. According to Zhou’s family members, local police also asked his family not to hire lawyers but instead to use the legal aid lawyers provided. 

So, let’s talk a bit more about the details of this draft law. What’s going on there?

Sure.  So, according to a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency, the draft legal aid laws stipulates that courts, prosecutors and police should not restrict or infringe defendants’ rights to hire a lawyer by informing legal aid institutions to appoint lawyers. 

The draft law has been submitted for a third reading to the Standing Committee of China’s top legislature. So, we’ll just have to wait and see how things develop.