The Last Mile of Justice: Reflections on “The Last Defense”
In the context of the 6th New Era Procuratorial Publicity Week in 2025, themed “Strengthening Supervision of Criminal Punishment Enforcement to Safeguard Social Fairness and Justice,” the film “The Last Defense” carries particular significance. As the first domestic film focusing on the work of prison-stationed prosecutors, it’s adapted from a real case handled by the Anhui procuratorial organs. The story revolves around An Ya, a prison-stationed prosecutor who works to exonerate an inmate wrongly imprisoned a decade prior. It showcases the image of a new era prosecutor who upholds fairness and justice in criminal punishment enforcement by ensuring every case is handled with high quality and efficiency.
Criminal punishment enforcement supervision is not only the “last mile” of legal supervision but also the final “barrier” safeguarding fairness and justice. When criminal enforcement prosecutors affix their solemn signatures in the registry, they are signing a responsibility and a solemn commitment to “handle every case with high quality and efficiency.” No matter how long a case has been sealed or how great the obstacles, there will always be someone holding the torch of law, steadfastly guarding the last inch of land where justice reaches. As a criminal enforcement prosecutor, I have profound feelings after watching this film:
Key Takeaways from the Film
Upholding the “Last Mile” as the Baseline for High-Quality and Efficient Case Handling
Criminal punishment enforcement is the terminal stage of criminal proceedings, and criminal punishment enforcement prosecution is the final barrier to maintaining judicial justice. Just like the prison-stationed prosecutor An Ya in the film, her dedication to pursuing the truth for ten years makes her a vivid embodiment of this barrier. She doesn’t let go of any doubts in the files, nor does she ignore any statement from the parties involved, ultimately bringing a decade-old injustice to light. This is precisely the baseline requirement of criminal punishment enforcement prosecution in the new era: the fair execution of every case is a touchstone for testing judicial credibility, and the core of high quality and efficiency is to ensure that justice never “goes offline.”
Legal Thinking as a Professional Quality for High-Quality and Efficient Case Handling
From review of arrests to handling complaints and appeals, the legal thinking and professional sensitivity of prosecutors are key to restoring the truth. In the film, An Ya captures a suspicious point from Qian Xiaozhong’s description of the victim Fu Xiaodong’s “red hat.” This sensitivity is not only about pursuing the truth for a deceased friend and seeking justice for the wronged but also a vivid practice of the legal thinking of prosecutors in the new era. Only by being good at using legal thinking in work, finding contradictions from physical evidence, documentary evidence, and verbal evidence, and using legal logic to penetrate the fog of appearance can the legal truth restore the factual truth.
Legal Wisdom as an Efficiency Engine for High-Quality and Efficient Case Handling
An Ya, as a female prison-stationed prosecutor, has both the fearless courage to face the supervision venue and the wisdom and strategy to break the deadlock. The detail of her communicating with the parties involved through chess is profound: understanding the other party’s psychology through chess confrontation and using trust to knock on the door of truth. This “breaking the situation with wisdom” communication art is a vivid practice for prosecutors in the new era to improve the quality and efficiency of case handling. Integrating professional wisdom into the entire process of case handling can not only reduce communication costs but also accurately hit the core, so that every effort points to the improvement of case quality and efficiency.
Compassionate Guardianship as the Value Foundation for High-Quality and Efficient Case Handling
In the film, Lu Huaisheng goes to jail to protect his family, and his wife and children’s unwavering trust for ten years, as well as his excitement after learning that his family is in trouble, all demonstrate that family affection is the most tender defense line in people’s hearts. And the law is precisely the solid railing that guards this warmth. An Ya’s persistence allows justice that is ten years late to finally be in place, which is not only the fairness of the case result but also the interpretation of the deep connotation of “high quality and efficiency”: handling every case well requires not only the pursuit of dual fairness of procedure and substance but also allowing justice to arrive with warmth, so that the masses can feel the warmth and power of the law in judicial cases.
The “high quality and efficiency” of criminal punishment enforcement prosecution in the new era is never a cold indicator number but a sum of upholding the bottom line, using thinking, pouring wisdom, and conveying warmth in every case like An Ya. Only in this way can the last line of defense of the law be indestructible and the “last mile” of justice be unimpeded.