Rights Defense Network Policy and Law Commentary: Draft Revision to the Criminal Procedure Law Submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for Deliberation — Good-Looking Legal Provisions Are Useless! The Real Hurdle in the Major Criminal Procedure Law Revision Is Implementation, Not the Text

Guest commentator: Zhang Haoran

On November 2, 2026, the Draft Revision to the Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China was submitted for its first deliberation at the 25th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress. The draft contains 55 articles and optimizes the criminal procedure system across seven areas, coordinating the lawful punishment of crime with the protection of human rights. It improves the presumption of innocence, explicitly prohibits presuming guilt, strengthens protections for the procedural rights of victims, criminal suspects, and defendants, regulates the use of coercive measures, and improves the review mechanism for detention. It also improves related systems for leniency for those who confess and accept punishment, handling cases involving minors, foreign-related criminal proceedings, and the disposition of property involved in cases, while continuing to advance the development of a socialist judicial system that is fair, efficient, and authoritative. This revision is grounded in pain points in judicial practice, further strengthens the rule of law, and promotes judicial fairness. (For details, see: http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c2/c30834/202611/t20261102_458171.html and https://www.163.com/dy/article/LB4JBHQ00530W1MT.html )

Commentary: Good-Looking Legal Provisions Are Useless! The Real Hurdle in the Major Criminal Procedure Law Revision Is Implementation, Not the Text

On November 2, the draft revision to the Criminal Procedure Law was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for its first deliberation. The 55 amendments, covering seven major areas, have become a focal point in the rule of law in recent days. As the Han Feizi says: “When laws change with the times, order prevails; when governance suits the age, it succeeds.” It is an essential part of progress in the rule of law to keep laws abreast of the times and fill gaps. This revision directly addresses longstanding pain points in judicial practice and introduces a number of additional measures to protect human rights; its intentions and direction merit recognition. But a sober review reveals that upgrading provisions on paper does not mean rights will be realized in practice; moreover, the double-edged effects hidden in some provisions may cause implementation to depart from the legislative intent.

The revision’s most central advance is the dual strengthening of the concept and procedures for protecting human rights. From explicitly writing in “prohibiting the presumption of guilt,” directly addressing entrenched practices of “deciding guilt first and holding trial later” and “treating confessions as supreme,” to establishing the proportionality principle for coercive measures and sharply narrowing the scope for applying residential surveillance at a designated location; from strengthening reviews of the necessity of detention and adding the mandatory rule that “when the detention period approaches the sentence term, the person must be released,” to refining victims’ procedural rights, regulating leniency for those who confess and accept punishment, and improving judicial protection for minors, a series of adjustments consistently advances in the direction of “restraining public power and protecting private rights,” giving criminal justice a stronger foundation in human rights.

But the ancients offered this warning long ago: “Laws cannot enforce themselves.” The longstanding problem with China’s justice system has never been a lack of fine legal provisions, but that they become distorted in practice. Past special campaigns often saw implementation become distorted by a “better to err on the left than on the right” approach, and the judicial sphere likewise has a habitual pattern of “adding requirements at every level and applying flexible exceptions.” However perfectly rights may be written on paper, when they reach case-handling at the grassroots level, they may be reduced to their original state in the face of pressure to solve cases and assessment targets.

First among the problems is the awkward absence of an enforcement loop for core principles. Enacting a “prohibition on presuming guilt” is certainly an upgrade in principle, but the draft does not provide corresponding procedural sanctions. If case-handlers continue to question and gather evidence with a presumption of guilt, deciding guilt before trial, the evidence will not be rendered invalid, nor is there a clear accountability mechanism. In the end, the provision will most likely become a declaration in name only. Practices formed over decades cannot possibly be reversed completely by adding a single principle. A rule without teeth is ultimately a paper tiger.

Improvements to the detention system are likewise trapped in the dead end of “self-supervision.” The mechanism for reviewing the necessity of detention appears more detailed, but the reviewing body and the case-handling body are essentially part of the same system. The logic of supervising oneself means such reviews are highly likely to become mere formalities. Although the scope for applying residential surveillance at a designated location has been narrowed, room for abuse has not been eliminated. In the face of case-handling needs, procedural boundaries can easily be breached under the guise of flexibility. Designs that appear rigorous often cannot withstand the force of entrenched investigative practices.

Du Xunhe wrote in a poem: “On Jingxi’s rocky shoals, people tread with care; all year, none are heard to founder. Yet in the placid stretches free of rocks, time and again we hear of those who drown.” The refinements to the system of leniency for those who confess and accept punishment are precisely the “placid stretches free of rocks” where problems are most likely to arise. The system is intended to improve judicial efficiency and ease the burden of litigation. But if protections for the right to defense do not keep pace, and firm constraints are lacking against “pressuring people into confessions” and “using punishment to force confessions,” it can easily become a tool for applying pressure in another form. Many people who could have pleaded not guilty are forced to confess in order to secure a lighter sentence. This appears to improve case-closure efficiency, but in fact sacrifices judicial fairness and individual rights.

A deeper regret is that the revision is incomplete. Core procedural rights recognized internationally, such as the right to remain silent and the right to have a lawyer present during questioning, were not included in the amendments. Yet these are foundational institutional safeguards against torture and forced confessions and support the presumption of innocence. Without these cornerstones, the “prohibition on presuming guilt” lacks its most crucial institutional support, leaving human rights protections at the level of superficial fixes. The imbalance between public power and the right to defense has not fundamentally changed, and even the most refined procedural design will inevitably be significantly weakened in practice.

Of course, we need not therefore deny the value of this revision. No progress in the rule of law can happen overnight; every incremental adjustment lays the groundwork for deeper institutional improvements. But we should remain clear-eyed: revision is only the starting point; implementation is the destination. However elegantly legal provisions are written, if they cannot be translated into fairness and justice in individual cases, or let every ordinary person involved in a case tangibly feel that their rights are protected, they will ultimately be no more than a polished façade on paper.

The law is a public instrument of the realm. Punishing crime and protecting human rights are two sides of the same balance in criminal justice. We hope the draft will further address shortcomings in implementation during subsequent deliberations, build a firm bulwark for rights, allow good laws to release the power of good governance, and turn the protection of human rights from words in legal provisions into a reality everyone can feel.