Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law

This joint research project by the China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing and the Max Planck Institute, Freiburg studies the legal framework within which police and prosecution develop and implement policies of dismissing criminal cases without criminal trial and/or sentence, working with a comparative perspective on Germany and the People's Republic of China. In addition, the study focuses on the extent to which police and prosecution make use of the possibilities of diversion and whether specific non-prosecution patterns can be observed. The Chinese part of the study also highlights the situation within the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, where the normative situation, due to the still existing Common Law tradition, is often very different from the situation on the Chinese mainland.

The research on non-prosecution policies aims at identifying how both systems deal with the complex relationship between rule of law, procedural efficiency and control, and equal treatment of defendants in normative and practical terms. To achieve this goal, statistical data on prosecutorial decision-making were collected. In addition, high ranking prosecutors in China and Germany were interviewed on the basis of several fictitious case scenarios. The study will also provide conclusions on legal policy as to the role of the public prosecution services in both general and practical terms.

Following the publication of the Chinese version by the Zhongguo Jiancha Chubanshe, the English version was published in autumn of 2002 in the Max Planck series "Interdisciplinary Studies in Criminal Law and Crimininology."

German Foreign Office, Ministry of Education of Baden-Württemberg.