As a rather critical special relief procedure, the examination of criminal appeal cases has not been brought into the judicial proceedings of the Chinese law, with its relevant provisions seen in judicial interpretations and normative documents. At present, there are still some deficiencies in the criminal appeal review of China, such as diversity in review body, imperfection in examining content and procedure, and insufficiency in exerting the role of supporting systems. Therefore, it is essential to reform the criminal appeal examination system, including eliminating the review subject status of the court, and setting up a relatively independent criminal appeal review committee within the prosecuting authority to execute substantive examination over appeal cases; distinguishing between the formal review and substantive review, and establishing the criminal appeal examination proceedings; perfecting the system of criminal appeal represented by the lawyer, and standardizing the non-local review system of criminal appeal cases, in order to enhance the quality and effectiveness of criminal appeal review, build it into a kind of formal criminal litigation system gradually and facilitate the development of criminal procedure legislation.