Compare of prosecutionin the UK and China
...cution Service (CPS) was established by the Prosecution of Offences Act(POA)1985, the intention of this Act is to give the CPS as a whole the right to institute and conduct any criminal proceedings. But, The CPS in practice exercises no supervisory role over the police investigation of cases; it simply acts on the file presented after the investigation by the police. The Report of the Runciman Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993) recommends the CPS plays a greater role in the investigative process. It states (para93): The police should seek the advice of the CPS at the investigation stage in appropriate cases in accordance with guidelines to be agreed between the two services. Because the majority of rights of CPS(Crown Prosecution Service) are procedural rights, and CPS did not effectively restrict the investigation power of police. CPS subjects to a number of critics from societies, as a result, a new Act was enacted in 2003, from now on, prosecutors who lead police to investigate evidence and supervise legality of investigation are appointed to the polices by the prosecution. According to the above conditions, we concluded that prosecution in china is not only the public prosecution, but also the superintendent office, and it has larger power than in the UK. In the UK, prosecution is only a body responsible for prosecuting, but we should pay attention to that the power of prosecution in the UK has been extended and is likely to be further extended in the future. In Chinese Constitution, Article 131 The people's procuratorates exercise procuratorial power independently, in accordance with the provisions of the law, and are not subject to interference by any administrative organ, public organization or individual. Article 132 The Supreme People's Procuratorate is the highest procuratorial organ. The Supreme People's Procuratorate directs the work of the people's procuratorates at various local levels and of the special people's procuratorates at various local levels. People's procuratorates at higher levels direct the work of those at lower levels. Article 133 The Supreme People's Procuratorate is responsible to the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee. People's procuratorates at various levels are responsible to the organs of state power which created them and to the people's procuratorates at higher levels. The independence of prosecution is “relative independence” in China. Because of given political and social structure, the independence of prosecution must be limited in China. First, the outlays of Local prosecutions are provided by the Local governments, it is difficult to keep away from the control of government. Some local authorities master the prosecution through defaulting necessary fees, so reforming the source of prosecution fees is no time to delay. Second, The Politics and Law Committee of the National People’s Congress directly intervene in the concrete cases of prosecution. This situation does not comply with Chinese Constitution, the Article 4 of Constitution states that no organization or individual is privileged to be beyond the Constitution or the law. In the UK, prosecutions do not need to answer for the local authorities, and institutionally separate from the police. Financial independence of prosecutions is the most important reason why they can keep independent from other governments. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) through the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is answerable to Parliament through the Attorney General. Parliament can supervise the prosecution, but can not intervene in any concrete decision of CPS. This point is different from China, and better than China. The power of discretion is another difference. In the UK, the limit of discretion is not wide, there are a number of choices open to prosecutors. If it has proved impossible to discover the identity of the person responsible for a relatively minor offence, or if there is not enough evidence to secure a conviction, or if for any other good reasons it appears in appropriate to proceed, the prosecutor can discontinue the proceedings or drop the case. Even though a crime was justified by available evidence, prosecutor can decide to not instigate criminal proceedings. In 1951, the Attorney General, Lord Shawcross, noted that: It has never been the rule in this country------I hope it never will be --------that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution.(House of Commons Debates, vol483, col681, 29 January 1951) This dictum has been almost universally accepted within the criminal just...