National People Congress

China
 Leadership
Presidium of NPC Presidium of the National People's Congress (Temporary, Elected
before every session of NPC opens and finished after every session
[1]
concludes)
since 4 March 2018 (at a preparatory meeting for 1st session of 13th
NPC)

Executive Chairperson of Presidium of NPC Li Zhanshu,

Secretary-General of NPC Wang Chen, CPC

since 4 March 2018 (at a preparatory meeting for 1st session of 13th
NPC)

Chairman of NPCSC Li Zhanshu, CPC

since 17 March 2018

Secretary-General of NPCSC Yang Zhenwu, CPC

since 17 March 2018
Strength
 8 other officially recognized parties and forums also part of
NPC
The National People's Congress (NPC)
 The National People's Congress is the highest organ of State power in the People's Republic of China.
Its main functions and powers include legislative power, appointing and removing power, decisive
power and supervising power

I. The State legislative power:

 The NPC has the right to enact and amend the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, and to
enact and amend basic laws concerning criminal offenses, civil affairs, the State organs and other
matters.

 II. The power to select, decide and remove the members of the high-level State organs
and their power:
 The NPC has the following rights:
 --to select the members of the Standing Committee of the NPC;
 --to elect the President and the Vice-President of the People's Republic of China;
 --to decide on the choice of the Premier, Vice-Premiers, State Councilors, Ministers in charge of
ministries or commissions, the Auditor-General and the Secretary-General of the State Council;
 --to elect the Chairman of the Central Military Commission and, upon nomination by the Chairman,
to decide on the choice of all other Members of the Central Military Commission;
 --to elect the President of the Supreme People's Court and the Procurator-General of the Supreme
People's Procuratorate.
 --The NPC has the right to remove the Members it has elected.
The National People's Congress (NPC) [cont’d]
III. The decisive power of major State events:

The NPC has the right to examine and approve the report
on implementing the plan for national economic and social
development; to examine and approve the state budget and the
report on its implementation; to approve the establishment of
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under
the Central Government; to decide on the establishment of special
administrative regions and the systems to be instituted there; to
decide on questions of war and peace; and other functions and
powers as the highest organ of State power should exercise.
The National People's Congress (NPC) [cont’d]
IV. The supervising power over other highest State organs:

 The NPC has the right to supervise the implementation of the Constitution. According to
the Chinese Constitution, the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the
Supreme People's Procuratorate are all created by the NPC, responsible to it and
supervised by it. The NPC's exercise of its supervisory right is to supervise the
government and other State organs on behalf of the people. This supposed to safeguard
the “normal operation” of the State apparatus.

 Under the current Constitution and related laws, the NPC holds a session on the first
quarter of each year. convened by its Standing Committee. The NPC is elected for a term
of five years .
 Standing Committee of the NPC
The Standing Committee of the NPC is the permanent supreme State organ of power and
legislation. It exercises the highest State power and legislative power when the NPC is not in
session – all but two weeks of the year.

The Standing Committee is composed of 153 members, none of whom can assume an office in
State administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs.

The Standing Committee of the NPC exercises several main functions and powers. It interprets
the Constitution and supervises its implementation, enacts and amends laws, with the
exception of those which should be enacted by the NPC, partially supplements and amends
laws enacted by the NPC when it is not in session, and interprets the laws.

Since 1979, the Standing Committee of the NPC has enacted over 280 laws, and the standing
committees of local people's congresses have drawn up over 3, 000 local rules and regulations
.
 “Special Committees” of the NPC
The special committees, both permanent and provisional, are organs representing the NPC.
When the NPC is in session, the main work of the special committees is to study, examine
and draw up related motions. When it is not in session, they work under the direction of
the NPC Standing Committee.
Currently, there are eight permanent special committees:

 the Nationalities Committee

 Law Committee
 Financial and Economic Committee
 Educational, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee
 Foreign Affairs Committee
 Overseas Chinese Committee
 Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs and
 Committee on Environmental and Resource Protection.
The Government Structures
 At the political center in Beijing, the key government
structures are the National People’s Congress (NPC), which
is China’s legislature, and the State Council, which exercises
executive functions.
 Under the State Council are government ministries and
commissions, which have ranged in number since 1949.

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National People’s Congress
 According to the constitution, the highest organization of
state authority is the NPC.
 The NPC and its permanent body, the NPC Standing
Committee, exercise legislative functions.
 NPC delegates are elected for five-year terms by delegates in
provincial-level congresses and the armed forces.

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National People’s Congress
 Normally, NPC delegates assemble once annually for a
plenary session of about two weeks.
 Formally, the NPC has extensive powers, including
amendment of the constitution, passage and amendment of
legislation, approval of economic plans and government work
reports, and appointment of top state and government
leaders.

13 of 67
National People’s Congress
 Is the NPC (and its Standing Committee) a “rubber stamp”
assembly?
 For the Maoist years, the answer is clearly “yes.”

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National People’s Congress
 In recent decades, however, the NPC has become more
assertive, and its Standing Committee has assumed a greater
role in law making.
 Actual failure to pass legislation submitted to the NPC has
occurred twice.

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The State Council
 In lawmaking, the State Council is the center of government
activity, although this role too is newly enhanced.
 The State Council is composed of the premier, who is head of
government, and his cabinet of vice-premiers, state
councillors, ministers, auditor general, and secretary general
(all formally nominated by the premier and appointed by the
NPC).

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The State Council
 As in parliamentary systems, the bulk of legislation is drafted
by specialized ministries and commissions under the
direction of the cabinet.

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The State Council
 Also, however, as most Chinese laws are drafted in general
and imprecise language, they require detailed “implementing
regulations” to have any effect.
 These regulations are typically drafted by State Council
ministries.

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JUDICIARY IN CHINA
People's Procuratorates of the PRC
Article 130 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China provides that the
PRC establishes the Supreme People's Procuratorate, local people's procuratorates at
different levels, the military procuratorates and other special people's procuratorates.

Nature and Tasks

Article 129 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China states that the people's
procuratorates are state organs for legal supervision.
By exercising their procuratorial authority, the people's procuratorates:
“suppress all treason, attempts to split the country or other counterrevolutionary activities,
and prosecute counterrevolutionaries and other criminals.”
“Their purpose is to safeguard the unity of the country, the people's democratic dictatorship
and the socialist legal system; to maintain public order, including order in production and
other work, in education and scientific research, and in the daily life of the people; to
protect the socialist property owned by the whole people and by collectives and the
private property lawfully owned by individuals; to protect the citizens' rights of the
person and their democratic and other rights; and to ensure the smooth progress of
socialist modernization.”
People's Procuratorates of the PRC (cont’d)
Functions and Powers

The people's procuratorates exercise the following functions and powers:

 procuratorial authority in cases of treason, of attempts to split the country and of other major crimes that
violate state policies, laws, decrees and administrative orders;
 investigate cases involving graft, infringement of citizens' democratic rights, dereliction of duty and other cases
which they deem necessary to handle directly, and decide whether to arrest the offenders and initiate public
prosecution;
 review cases investigated by the public security organs and state security agencies and decide whether to approve
arrest and whether to prosecute; supervise the investigation activities of public security organs and state security
agencies to determine whether they conform to the law;
 initiate and support public prosecutions of criminal cases; supervise the criminal trials of the people's courts to
determine whether they conform to the law;
 supervise the verdicts and sentences of the people's courts in criminal cases to determine whether they conform
to the law; in cases where they find definite errors, lodge protests in accordance with the procedure for appeal;
supervise the execution of sentences in criminal cases and the activities of prisons, houses of detention and
institutions in charge of reform or rehabilitation through labor to determine whether they conform to the law;
 exercise legal supervision over trials of civil suits by the people's courts;
 exercise legal supervision over administrative litigation and;
 protect citizens' legal right to lodge complaints or petitions against state functionaries who violate the law;
investigate the legal responsibility of those who infringe upon other citizens' rights of the person or their
democratic or other rights; deal with the citizens' accusations, reports of wrongdoing and petitions.
People's Procuratorates of the PRC (cont’d)
Organizational Structure
(i)The Supreme People's Procuratorate
(ii)Local People's Procuratorates
 These include:
 -people's procuratorates of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the
Central Government;
 -branches of the above, and people's procuratorates of autonomous prefectures and cities directly
under the provincial governments; and
 -people's procuratorates of counties, cities, autonomous counties and municipal districts.
(iii)Special People's Procuratorates
 There are two types of special people's procuratorates – military and railway
(iv)The Procuratorial Committee
 Each people's procuratorate has a procuratorial committee. The committee is expected to institute
the system of democratic centralism and, under the direction of the chief procurator, to discuss and
decide important cases and other major issues, on the principle of the minority being subordinate to
the majority. If the chief procurator disagrees with the majority's decision on an important matter, it
is referred to the standing committee of the people's congress at the corresponding level for final
decision.
Supreme People's Procuratorate of the PRC
The Supreme People's Procuratorate is the highest procuratorial organ of the state. Its main functions
and powers are :

 direct the work of the local people's procuratorates at the various levels and that of the special
people's procuratorates;
 exercise procuratorial authority in major criminal cases that have an impact on the entire country;
 lodge a protest, in accordance with the procedures for judicial supervision, if some definite error is
found in a legally effective verdict or sentence by a people's court at any level;
 supervise the activities of prisons, houses of detention and institutions in charge of reform through
labor;
 supervise trial of civil suits and administrative litigation;
 interpret laws applied to procuratorial practice;
 formulate regulations, provisions and rules for procuratorial practice;
 determine the organizational structure and staff size of the people's procuratorates at all levels.
Supreme People's Procuratorate of the PRC (cont’d)
The Supreme People's Procuratorate consists of the following departments:

 Criminal Procuratorial Department

 Procuratorial Department for Embezzlement and Bribery
 Procuratorial Department for Dereliction of Duty and Infringement of Citizens'
Rights
 Procuratorial Department for Railways
 Procuratorial Department for Prisons and Reformatories
 Procuratorial Department for Civil and Administrative Cases
 Procuratorial Department for Accusations and Petitions
 Supreme People's Court of the PRC
The Supreme People's Court is the highest judicial organ in China and is responsible to the
NPC and its Standing Committee.
 It independently exercises the highest judicial power according to the law and (supposedly)
without any “interruption” by administrative organs, social organizations or individuals.
 Its structure comprises a judicial committee, or the highest judicial organization, and
followingcourts:
 the No.1 Criminal Tribunal and the No.2 Criminal Tribunal,
 the Civil Tribunal,
 the Economic Tribunal,
 the Administrative Tribunal,
 the Complaint and Appeal Tribunal and
 the Communication and Transportation Tribunal.
Supreme People's Court of the PRC (cont’d)
Responsibilities:

 According to the PRC Constitution and organic statutes, the Supreme People's Court is
charged with three responsibilities:

 First, trying cases that have the greatest influence in China, hearing appeals against the
legal decisions of higher courts, and trying the cases the Supreme People's Court
claims are within its original jurisdiction.

 Second, supervising the work of local courts and special courts at every level,
overruling wrong judgements they might have made, and deciding interrogations and
reviewing cases tried by the lower courts.

 Third, giving judicial explanations of the specific utilization of laws in the judicial
process that must be carried out nationwide.
From State Dept. 2012 Human Rights Reports on
the PRC
 Repression and coercion, particularly against organizations and individuals involved in rights advocacy
and public interest issues, were routine.
 Individuals and groups seen as politically sensitive by authorities continued to face tight restrictions on
their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel. Efforts to silence and intimidate political
activists and public interest lawyers continued to increase. Authorities resorted to extralegal measures
such as enforced disappearance, “soft detention,” and strict house arrest, including house arrest of family
members, to prevent the public voicing of independent opinions.
 Public interest law firms – and lawyers - that took on sensitive cases continued to face harassment,
disbarment of legal staff, and closure.
 There was severe official repression of the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and harsh
restrictions on the movement of ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
and of ethnic Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas.
 Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the visit of foreign officials, sensitive anniversaries,
and in the period leading up to the meeting of the 18th Party Congress in November.
From State Dept. 2012Human Rights Reports on
PRC (cont’d)
 Citizens did not have the right to change their government, and citizens had limited forms of redress against the
government.
 Other human rights problems during the year included:
 extrajudicial killings, including executions without due process; enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention,
including prolonged illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities known as “black jails”;
 torture and coerced confessions of prisoners; detention and harassment of lawyers, journalists, writers, dissidents, petitioners,
and others who sought to exercise peacefully their rights under the law;
 a lack of due process in judicial proceedings; political control of courts and judges; closed trials;
 the use of administrative detention; restrictions on freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel;
 failure to protect refugees and asylum seekers; pressure on other countries to forcibly return PRC citizens to China;
 intense scrutiny of and restrictions on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs);
 discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities;
 Despite reported reconsideration, continuing a coercive birth-limitation policy that in some cases resulted in forced abortion
(sometimes at advanced stages of pregnancy) or forced sterilization;
 trafficking in persons;
 prohibitions on independent unions and a lack of protection for workers’ right to strike; and the use of forced labor, including
prison labor.
 Corruption remained widespread. Authorities prosecuted a number of abuses of power, particularly with regard to
corruption. However, the internal disciplinary procedures of the CCP were opaque and only selectively applied to
senior officials. (Cf. Bo Xilai case)
PRC Attitudes on Death Penalty
 A 1995 study revealed “that the overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens hold
affirmative attitude towards the death penalty”
 Quoting Hu Yuteng “On the Death Penalty at the Turning of the Century,” in M.
Nowak and Xin Chunying (eds), EU-China Human Rights Dialogue: Proceedings of the
Second EU-China Legal Experts, Seminar Held in Beijing on 19 and 20 October 1998
(2000), pp. 88-94 at 91-92.
 Yet in 2013, when a Chinese street hawker who scraped a meagre existence
barbecuing meat was executed, the state-ordered death by lethal injection of Xia
Junfeng, convicted of fatally stabbing two “chengguan” urban security enforcers in
2009, prompted an all-day battle between Chinese censors and tweeters who were
outraged by the verdict. At the same time, their was popular approval of a sentence
by a court in Beijing which issued the death sentence to a road rage attacker found
guilty of killing a toddler.
 Leo Lewis, “Tale of two executions exposes Chinese attitudes to death penalty,”
The Times, Sept. 23, 2013
 Striking “Hard”
The existence of ‘strike hard campaigns’ and determination to
make examples of various types of offender create inequities
in the application of the death penalty
Inevitably certain individuals at certain times and in particular
parts of the country are selected for execution for non-lethal
crimes such as smuggling, fraud, running prostitution
rackets, for robbery, corruption, tax evasion, and other
offenses
Example Strike Hard Campaign: Spring 2001
 From April – July 2001: 1,781 executions
 By end of 2001: 2,468 executions (just from Strike Hard)
Striking “Hard” – Part 2
 Most drug-related executions take place on International
(anti-)Drugs Day:
 Of 221 executions for drug offenses recorded by Amnesty
International in 1999, 196 (89%) took place in the last week of
June
 A fine way to celebrate the holiday (June 26)?
Capital Offenses in the PRC Which Would Not Merit
Death in Other Nations

 Execution for
 armed robbery (last reports from 1990)
 economic crimes such as corruption, embezzlement, and fraud
 trading in illicit drugs
 kidnapping
 smuggling
 piracy
 publishing and selling obscene materials
 smuggling forged money
 tax- and VAT-related offences
 public order offences
 trafficking in women and children
Informational Problems
Art. 212 of China’s Criminal Procedure Law of 1997 provided
for the publication of every execution of a death sentence,
and all courts have to prepare written records of the
executions, yet no statistics on capital punishment are
published, being still considered a state secret
Deterrence?
China claims that deterrence is working and says that death penalty is responsible (for
example) for the decline in the rate of recorded crime from 8.9 crimes per 10,000
people in 1981 to 5 per 10,000 in 1987.
 A more recent (and often-cited) example: The Supreme People's Court approved
the death sentence against Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, who was convicted of taking bribes
worth some 6.5 million yuan ($850,000 at then-current exchange rates) from eight
companies. Among them were companies that had caused numerous deaths of
consumers, many of them infants, due to tainted milk products and baby formula.
 Zheng, head of the State Food and Drug Administration from 1998 to 2005, was
sentenced on May 29, 2007; his appeal was heard the following month, and was
executed in early July 2007.
 An Atypical Case?
CHEN GUOQING, YANG SHILIANG , HE GUOQIANG , ZHU YANQIANG
Confessions extorted through Torture - Presumption of Innocence - Retrials for "insufficient or
unclear evidence"
Four times sentenced to death for murder and robbery by the Chengde City Intermediate People’s Court between
1996 and 2003;

· Three times the Hebei High Court overturned the original sentence (s), and sent the case back to the Intermediate
Court for re-trial "on the grounds that the facts were not clear";

· All four defendants stated to the court that their confessions had been extracted under torture and that they were
forced to confess to the charges made against them.

· They were still awaiting a final verdict (as last reported in 2009!) pending an appeal against the fourth sentence.

The four defendants’ case was tried for the fourth time on 21 July 2003, this time by the Hebei Province High
People’s Court sitting as the court of first instance, apparently in response to the authorities’ exasperation that the
intermediate-level court could not reach a sound verdict. During the public hearing, all four men were reportedly
permitted to submit their alibis to the court, as well as present the wounds sustained during their torture to the
court, and to state the names of the police officers who tortured them. One report claims this was the first time
the co-defendants had physically been able to show their scars, having appeared in court on all previous occasions
wearing handcuffs.
 Changing Chinese Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty
 Roger Hood,Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has published a report on official attitudes
towards capital punishment in China.
 Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective outlines the changes over the past decade on this issue
within Chinese academic and judicial communities.
 Hood observed that one of the strongest justifications for the death penalty in China is “the belief that retribution based
on the notion of ‘a life for a life’ was deeply embedded in Chinese culture; that ignoring this support might cause social
instability; and that China [is] not yet sufficiently economically developed that it could do away with an effective
criminal sanction.”
 Nevertheless, Hood points out that despite secrecy around the country’s death penalty, “no one can doubt that a
movement towards restriction and eventual abolition has got under way.”
 He attributes the shift in attitudes on the death penalty to the emerging international narrative that suggests capital
punishment should be treated not as “a weapon of national criminal justice policy,” but as “a fundamental violation of
universal human rights: not only the right to life but the right to be free from excessive, repressive and tortuous
punishments - including the risk that an innocent or undeserving person may be executed.”
 Hood concludes that “the last few years have witnessed a distinct change in the discourse, evidenced by the willingness
of the Chinese authorities to discuss the death penalty in human rights seminars and dialogues with European countries,
the gradual opening up of the subject to research, and the attempt to guard against wrongful conviction and control the
incidence of executions through review of all death penalty verdicts by the Supreme People’s Court.”
A Few Other Cases
The Chinese media has given widespread coverage to two relatively
recent wrongful convictions –
1. A butcher executed for murder in 1989 was proved
innocent when his alleged victim was found alive;
2. A man (She Xianglin ) was wrongfully convicted and
imprisoned for 11 years for the murder of his wife, who suddenly
showed up alive and well one day; however, he was presumed
guilty from the start and ultimately received compensation from
the government for physical and emotional harm suffered during
the course of his wrongful imprisonment.
Fluctuations in Death Penalty Rates
 Prior to the revision of the Criminal Law in 1997, there were
many reports of executions occurring within 6-8 days after arrest
 Since then there have been some incidents of accelerated trials:
 In Shenzhen, April 1998, at a large public sentencing rally 14
out of 40 defendants were sentenced to death and then escorted
to the execution ground straight after the rally to be shot.
 When Strike Hard campaigns are in progress, for example in
Spring 2001, police, prosecutors, and lawyers were urged to
speed up the process of criminal trials even more.
Erosion of SPC Review Power
 in February 1980, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress made the
following decision: For serious crimes such as homicide, rape, robbery, bombings and arson,
to which the death penalty could be applied, provincial higher courts had the right to impose
the punishment with authorization from the SPC.
 In 1983, the decision was written into the revised Organic Law of the People’s Courts of
China. Subsequently delegated this right in drug trafficking cases successively to five local
higher courts including Guangdong Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and
Sichuan Province.
 When the Criminal Procedure Law was revised in 1997, the SPCC was still the sole organ to
review death penalty rulings. Does delegation of the death penalty review right to lower
courts go against the Constitution. Organic Law of PCC is just a general law, while the
Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law constitute the fundamental law. Does the
constitution allow general law to violate a fundamental law?
 Local courts may adopt different standards in the award of the death penalty. Hence, a
criminal who may face capital punishment in one locality may escape the same fate in another
one. According to current laws, death penalty for criminal cases, such as homicide and rape, is
subject to review by provincial courts, while capital punishment for economic crimes and
crimes threatening state security can be reviewed by the SPC.
Relevant Provisions of ICCPR
Article 6
1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected
by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.
2. 2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death
may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force
at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the
present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final
judgment rendered by a competent court.
***
4. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the
sentence. [emphases added]
 The International Status of the DP
ABOLITIONIST AND RETENTIONIST COUNTRIES
More than half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Abolitionist for All Crimes 84
Abolitionist for Ordinary Crimes Only 12

Abolitionist in Practice 24

TOTAL Abolitionist Countries 120

 Retentionist Countries 76

EXECUTIONS AROUND THE WORLD

Overall, 21 countries are known to have carried out 682 executions, according to Amnesty International's report, titled "Death
Sentences and Executions 2012". The same number of countries executed 680 people the year before.
 However, these figures omit executions in China, Syria and Egypt. China does not release its figures, which are
considered a state secret. Amnesty was unable to confirm any executions in Syria and Egypt, but says some did occur there.
 China is said in the report to have carried out more than 1,000 executions (more than the rest of world combined), although that's
not verified.
 The countries with verified figures that executed the most people in 2012 are:
 Iran, a minimum of 314 people.
 Iraq, a minimum of 129 people.
 Saudi Arabia, a minimum of 79 people.
 United States, with 43 confirmed executions.
Extra-Judicial Killing
 Torture in police custody
 Reform Through Labor
 Use of Force:
 Tiananmen Square Massacre
 Against “terrorists” in Xinjiang:
 detaining and torturing Muslims in Xinjiang by labeling them either “separatist” or
“terrorist” for engaging in “illegal religious” activities
 Soldiers firing on peaceful protesters: Demonstration in Gulja in February 1997
resulted in death or serious injury. Local people were protesting for equal rights
for Uighurs when security forces used violence to break up the protest. Several
people were shot and demonstrators were reportedly hosed down with icy water
 Against “separatists” in Tibet
 Beatings of Falungong Members
SPC review of death sentences
 China's top court “regained” power to review death
sentences at the end of the last decade
 The authorities moved to stem criticism that the death
penalty was too widely used
 The Supreme Court passed its right to review to lower
courts in the 1980s, and a series of subsequent
miscarriages of justice subsequently come to light.
 The Supreme People's Court set up three branch courts
in order to conduct the reviews, according to Chinese
state media
SPC Death Penalty Review Begins
From January 1, 2007, the SPC was supposed to review all death sentences in China.
 Three criminal tribunals were set up as a supplement to the existing two, and the
review team has been expanded, according to the court.
 New members are selected from local courts, lawyers and law schools, and must
finish a three-month training at the Supreme People's Court. They serve on
probation for a year before officially assuming office.
Details of the review process.
 Each case is to be reviewed by a team of three judges. They will be required to check
the facts, laws applied and criminal procedures adopted.
 Any testimony extracted through illegal means will be declared invalid.
 During the review, judges must arraign the defendants face to face, and present their
separate judgments and reasons in writing.
 If the case is very complicated or there are doubts over the facts, judges can visit the
place where the alleged offense took place to check details.