On May 12, various defenders in the Dawu Group case were notified by the Communist Party’s Hebei Gaobeidian City Court that an illegal pre-trial conference would be held at the court on the morning of May 17, which is expected to last five days.
According to the information provided by the informants, the case involves 21 defendants, 9 charges, 348 volumes of files and identification materials, but the pre-trial conference scheduled by the Gaobeidian court is less than 10 days before the case is prosecuted to the court and several defenders obtain the CDs of the files.
Such a short period of time could not guarantee that the defense could complete the most basic defense work such as reading the files and verifying the evidence.
The source said that the timing was so unreasonable that three of the defenders were unable to attend the pre-trial conference due to conflicts between other cases and this pre-trial conference.
The source also said that in view of the number of people involved in the case, the suspected crimes and the large number of materials on file, the defense believes that the specific time for the pre-trial conference should be set to ensure that each defense has at least one month to read the files. In order to protect the basic litigation rights of the defense and ensure procedural justice in this case, the defense will jointly submit an application to the Gaobeidian Court for a delayed pre-trial conference.
In response, an informed lawyer told the Epoch Times that the court is blatantly trampling on judicial procedures.
The lawyer pointed out that the second paragraph of Article 53 of the judicial interpretation of the Criminal Procedure Law of the Supreme Court stipulates that “the people’s court shall provide facilities and guarantee the necessary time for the defense to access, extract and copy the case file materials.”
What is the necessary time? The lawyer said, 348 volumes of file materials, at the normal reading speed, even if the daily only to do the reading of this work, 10 hours a day continuous reading, it will take at least a month.
The lawyer thinks: “The court is disguised to restrict or even deprive lawyers of the right to read the files, in essence, depriving the defendant of the right to defense.”
Sun Dawu, 66, founder of the famous Hebei-based private enterprise Dawu Group, insisted on running the business independently for the benefit of ordinary people and workers and refused to collude with power, and Sun Dawu was also hailed by the media as the conscience of entrepreneurs.
In the early morning of November 11, 2020, Sun Dawu and the top management of the group, including the entire family of Sun Dawu (wife, two sons and daughter-in-law), were illegally arrested and detained until now, and the charges in the notice of arrest include the crime of illegal absorption of public deposits, the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, the crime of illegal mining, the crime of gathering a crowd to storm state organs, the crime of illegal occupation of agricultural land, the crime of forced trading, the crime of disrupting production and operation, and the crime of obstructing official duties, etc.
On April 26 this year, the case was transferred to the procuratorate; on May 6, the first day after the May Day holiday on the mainland, the defense lawyers were notified by the Gaobeidian City Court that the case of Sun Dawu and 21 others had been prosecuted to the court by the Gaobeidian City Procuratorate.
The fact that the case was brought to court in just ten days made it impossible for the defense lawyers to complete their basic defense work, and the team of dozens of lawyers was threatened and pressured by the authorities not to speak out for the case.
According to the source, according to the normal procedure, the defense lawyers need to complete the basic defense work such as reading the files, meeting with the clients and submitting legal opinions between the time the prosecutor’s office reviews the case and the time it is brought to court. The case involves 21 defendants (or defendant units), 9 charges, 348 files and identification materials, within ten days almost none of the defense lawyers can complete these tasks, some defense lawyers even too late to submit to the procuratorate commission procedures.
The legal director of Dawu Group has revealed that the case of Sun Dawu from the suspected “illegal absorption of public deposits”, may be upgraded to “crimes involving black and evil”.
The lawyer team said, the number of people involved in this case, the suspected crime file materials, the review and prosecution time is short, in the mainland prosecution history and even legal history can be said to have created a unique historical precedent.
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