—————————————————————————————“I am innocent, but I was imprisoned for 15 years without any crime, and I watched my father die. In jail! I'm going to get them right! All the wronged people are righted, and the guilty ones are punished, or I'm going to fight, in my father's name and in the name of the truth!" At the end of the film, the protagonist Julie After being detained for 15 years because of a miscarriage of justice, he was finally overturned by the crowd and shouted.
The story takes place in England in the 1970s, when there is a rebellion in Ireland. Rebellious youths Julie Conron and Paul from Bay City, Northern Ireland, go to England and join the drug-drinking organization "Xanadu". On the night of the crime, they had just been kicked out of Shenandoah and were about to return to Bay City. They were in the park saying goodbye to the homeless Charlie Parker they met when the crime happened. Since they gave all the rest of the money to Charlie, they broke into a prostitute's house to steal from their penniless hearts, and returned to Bay City with the stolen money. At that time, because of the panic caused by the continuous explosions, Congress passed an anti-terrorism bill that allowed the suspects to be held for seven days. That night Julie and Paul were caught as suspects and taken to England. The police did not seek the truth, but just to quell the explosion, they planted the crime on Qiu Li and his party, tortured Qiu Li to extract a confession, cooperated with psychological tactics (refused to admit it in court), and finally threatened Qiu with shooting his father without confessing. Lee, Julie had to sign the confession to be wronged. Due to the shady nature of this case from the very beginning, despite the best efforts of the defense lawyers, it is difficult to change the fact that Jolie and his party lost the case. Julie and his companions, as well as his father Joseph and his aunt's family, were sentenced to varying degrees in prison. In prison, Joseph insisted on writing a letter to prove his innocence. After the real murderer Joe was jailed, the police continued to hide the truth. In the face of all this, Joseph never gave up, and the lawyer Karesi, who had always questioned the case, also accepted the case to help Kang Long and his son rehabilitate. Se did not wait for Qing Bai to die prematurely. In the end, with the passage of time and the efforts of lawyers, public opinion finally turned to Julie and his party, and Cares finally collected enough evidence (including the alibi to Julie and Paul that the police deliberately concealed from Charlie Parker), and Julie and his party were wronged 15 Years later, the case was finally rehabilitated.
Two details of this film moved me to tears the most.
The first detail is that on the night of Joseph's death, a prisoner stood at the window and shouted "they killed Joseph", and lit the ball of paper and threw it from the window. Every window of the chapel was thrown out one after another, slowly falling, to pay homage to Joseph's wronged dead soul. That scene was very quiet, but it contained strength, as if heralding that the fire of truth would eventually overcome the darkness of unlawful corporate law.
Another detail is at the end of the credits when Julie is acquitted, he stands up, steps on the table, walks through the crowd, shouting "I'm going through the gate", and when stopped to let him go through the back door, he breaks through firmly. The crowd said, "I'm a free man, I want to go through the front door!" Seeing this, tears of excitement poured out again. This is truly a declaration of human rights roared after 15 years of injustice have been vindicated!
Putting aside these anger and moving back to rationality, there are many places in this film that deserve our deep consideration.
one. The importance of ensuring that legal justice is not violated.
The rule of law is the basic feature of a modern country. When a country's democracy and the rule of law are destroyed, the disaster caused to the country is self-evident. Politics is often incendiary, it is accompanied by beautiful promises, which is why it is confusing and uncertain. However, the rule of law is rational, even to a certain extent, ruthless, without intoxicating promises. While stipulating the rights of each citizen, it also stipulates the obligations of each citizen. It is precisely based on this feature that it It has become the bottom line of civil behavior and the guarantee of rights.
When the rule of law in a country is undermined, no matter how fascinating the political promise is, there is a huge crisis lurking behind this beautiful promise, and everyone is bound to endanger themselves. Cases in history can fully prove it. During the French Revolution, Robespierre, the leader of the Jacobin faction, sent many people to the guillotine, but in the end the people of Paris revolted again to overthrow him, and even he himself was sent to the guillotine. There are also the Great Cleansing Movement in the Soviet Union and the destruction of democracy and the rule of law during the Cultural Revolution in China, all of which have brought huge disasters to the country. Through this series of cases, we should reflect on the lessons and come to a conclusion - the importance of perfect, just and independent laws to the country.
There is such a worrying situation in China, that is, the ignorance and indifference of many ordinary people to the law. From various civil disputes in daily life to some major cases, many cases reflect that the concept of China's legal system is not deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Perhaps this situation has a certain origin in the history of China. Since ancient times, China has been founded on agriculture, and a strong political regime has always played a major role in Chinese society, and the people have always pinned their hopes on having a strong central government, but neglected Legal concept and contract spirit. This is very different from the West. The history of many Western countries determines their emphasis on the spirit of the contract. From this perspective, China's situation has economic rationality.
However, in a modern country, in a socialist country under the rule of law, knowing the law, understanding the law and having a legal concept is the direction that every citizen needs to strive for, not just an empty slogan or a score written down for an exam. Otherwise, the common people will be easily used and deceived by those with ulterior motives, blindly believing in the behavior of breaking the law under the guise of eliminating harm for the people and doing things for the people without knowing it.
two. Torture to extract confessions and unjust, false and wrongful convictions
In the film, Qiu Li's torture and mental attack can be described as quite cruel, and it is difficult not to confess under such means. Two very interesting details are that on the one hand, the police forced a confession by torture, and on the other hand, they refused to admit it. In the film, when Julie was beaten for the first time, the police officer hurriedly said: "Don't leave any scars!" When the police used their trump card to threaten Julie to shoot his father, Julie was about to collapse, while the other officers "comforted" him Saying that he had hallucinations and that no one was going to kill his father, and soon sent someone in with a gun and made a murder statement to continue to reinforce the threat, while reassuring Julie that he was hallucinating and not real. Two or three threats soon overwhelmed Julie. How clever this method is, it reflects the dark side of the judiciary - it is obviously forbidden by law to extract confessions, but it is used in the judicial process, and it must be done without leaking, so as to prepare for the refusal to appear in court in the future.
In our country, examples of this are not uncommon. For a long time, some police have used torture to extract confessions as a means of solving cases, emphasizing confessions and neglecting evidence, and infringing on the basic human rights of criminal suspects.
On the one hand, torture to extract confessions seems to improve the efficiency of case-solving and solve the problem of criminal suspects refusing to admit. But at the same time, on the one hand, it may lead to negligence of wrongful convictions, and on the other hand, it may condone the shady judiciary. Therefore, in handling cases, we should strengthen internal control and supervision in this area, find more advanced methods and sufficient evidence, and resolutely put an end to torture to extract confessions.
three. Mass Supervision and Judicial Independence
Jolie's case is both a stain and a defeat in the British judiciary and a victory for the British judiciary. The first half of the film allows us to see the dark side of British justice, and the second half shows its bright side.
From a negative perspective, judicial impartiality and judicial independence have been severely damaged in this case, and both judges and lawyers have fallen into irrationality. The high emotions of the crowd put a lot of pressure on the police, which led to the police having to make Julie and Paul responsible for the robbery, in order to quell the public anger and bombing attacks. After the real murderer was caught, the police continued to conceal the truth, which seriously violated human rights. It took as long as 15 years for the truth to be revealed to the world. It was a scandal in the British judiciary.
From a positive point of view, as Julie said to Caleth: "We've been locked up for 15 years, and they can lock us up for another 15 years, the other side is the **** government! Do you want them to say sorry to us?", however After seeing the real evidence, the judge returned Julie's innocence, ignoring the government's majesty. This is the victory of British judicial independence, and the victory of judicial independence cannot be separated from the supervision of the people.
It can be said that Qiu Li's injustice and his subsequent redress have the meaning of "success is also Xiao He, defeat is also Xiao He". If it weren't for the huge pressure exerted by the masses that interfered with the judicial process, resulting in the so-called "extraordinary measures in extraordinary times", such serious unjust, false and wrongful convictions may not have occurred. And 15 years later, if it wasn't for the leadership of Carles, the masses took to the streets of Dublin, London, and Liverpool, shouting "Free the four! Free the four!" to put enormous pressure on the government. Similarly, the truth is also It may not finally be revealed to the world.
The failure of mass interference and the victory of mass supervision are also the failure of the system and the victory of the system. Everything has two sides. However, it is difficult to grasp the boundaries of external interference with the judiciary and the role of supervision and promotion. After all, it is difficult for the masses to grasp detailed first-hand information.
There is also a typical case in my country in the past few years: the case of Zhang Jinzhu. At the beginning of this case, the media subjectively guided the public's emotions, which led to the phenomenon that "Zhang Jinzhu will not be killed if he did not kill the people," and put a lot of pressure on the government. Later, the issue of "who killed Zhang Jinzhu" was also discussed in society, and a large part of the reason was due to the guidance of the media and the killing of people in anger.
Therefore, this question is also worth considering.
Four. Administrative Intervention Judicial Independence
The western principles of judicial independence include judicial power independence, judicial independence, and judicial personnel independence. In the film, Julie's unjust case is against the spirit of judicial independence. The detective's shady story, as well as the lawyers and judges, are all caught in an irrational national sentiment, which has the spirit of illegal governance. It can be seen that this kind of scandal is inevitable in Britain, where the three powers are separated.
my country's Constitution stipulates that "the people's courts of the People's Republic of China are the judicial organs of the state"; "the people's courts exercise judicial power independently in accordance with the law and are not subject to interference from administrative organs, social groups and individuals". In addition, the "Law of the People's Republic of China on Judges" also lists the right of judges to "trial cases in accordance with the law without interference from administrative organs, social groups and individuals". Obviously, the coordination meeting presided over by the land department cannot invalidate the judgment of the state judicial organ, and the government department sent a letter to the people's court to intervene, which is a blatant violation of the constitution and the law.
Of course, my country also provides for the supervision of the judicial power. It is mainly manifested in: accepting the leadership and supervision of the party, accepting the supervision of the state power organs, accepting the supervision between superiors and subordinates and between the same levels, accepting the supervision of administrative organs, enterprises and institutions, social organizations, democratic parties and the masses, It is also subject to the supervision of public opinion. Through these supervisions, it is beneficial to better prevent judicial corruption images and behaviors such as judicial abuse.
Mutual restriction and supervision between powers are effective means to prevent abuse of rights, so it is very reasonable for judicial independence to be established on the basis of judicial supervision.
In fact, however, supervision and intervention are also a difficult boundary to grasp. Take the Zhang Jinzhu case as an example, when the case aroused public anger, it immediately attracted the attention of the superiors, and issued certain instructions to the judicial department. To a certain extent, this has also resulted in interference with the judiciary. Judicial action was added with a political purpose.
my country's judicial system and operation process have obvious administrative color. From the perspective of internal structure, judicial administration is manifested as a hierarchical system from the chief prosecutor (president), deputy chief prosecutor (deputy president), division (section, division) chief to ordinary prosecutors and judges. The rank of administrative officer is applied. Wages and bonuses are also always linked only to their executive level. The administrative rank of Shen Zhi has become a measure of the ability and level of prosecutors and judges. The famous saying "Judges have no other boss than the law" was cast aside. Moreover, my country's constitution establishes the model of "one government and two houses". However, in fact, the procuratorate and the courts have never had a status parallel to the government, and their finances are also subject to the government. From the perspective of the party committee, the leaders of local governments and even public security organs are also leaders of procuratorates and courts. The dependence of judges on superiors has provided a breeding ground for judicial injustice, and the independent trial system has been severely challenged.
This is also a provision worthy of our further improvement and to avoid abuse.
"In the Name of the Father" reflects a scandal in British judicial history, but it was eventually vindicated and recorded forever. Whether it is an upright person or a thief, the law should be applied equally. There are also such scandals in China's judicial process, which are worth facing and thinking about.
To quote Jolie's words at the end, "All wronged shall be rehabilitated, and guilty shall be punished, or I shall go on fighting, in my father's name and in the name of truth!" I think this is true for many lawyers Wake-up is also a call for every citizen's legal awareness.
Note: The Zhang Jinzhu case and the judicial independence part of the text are quoted from the case-based textbook "Analysis of Typical Legal Cases"
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