Criminal Justice Theory

This paper aims to explore systematically the issue of justice in the criminal justice field. Justice has always been playing a leading role in the criminal justice field because essentially the criminal justice system is constructed on the basis of it as a core value or purpose. For many years scholars both on domestic level and on international level have paid much attention on this issue, with many beneficial researches from varied perspectives. But this issue is too complex for a final research result to come. This paper will examine this issue in a systematical and way. The main contents are divided into five parts as follows:The first chapter is titled as"general issue on justice". Beginning with development of justice idea, this chapter briefly describes the main point of view of some famous thinkers all over the world and since ancient times. The purpose is to present readers with a survey as comprehensive and systematical as possible. This survey tells us that the issue of justice has been the focus of attention in the progress of civilization for thousands of years. This actually shows that the thinkers have some deep concerns and good expectations for the reality and that the issue of justice exerts influence on personal and social life. On the basis of the survey, the fundamental meaning of justice is elicited. Taking into consideration that social developments are directed by various values or purposes, this paper briefly compares justice and some other social values or purposes. Although issue of justice has a kind of fundamental status in society, it should be subject to the concept of social harmony, the general title of political and social development. At the end of this chapter, the basic meaning of social justice and its relationship with judicial justice are discussed.The second chapter is titled as"general issue on criminal justice". In this Chapter, the term"justice"is defined as litigation, and judicial justice as litigation justice. Different from former argumentation, this paper takes criminal justice as a whole, thus the characteristics of criminal justice are not limited to those of criminal procedure. They include power features, psychological features, social features determined by political and social practice belong to the system subject. Then features and main types of evaluation of criminal justice are discussed tentatively considering that issue of justice is usually evaluated by various subjects. On the basis of relationship of formal justice and substantial justice of law, the relationship of judicial justice and legislative justice in the area of criminal justice are discussed. At the same time, this paper tries to solve some perplexing issues concerning criminal justice such as justice and litigation costs, justice and conciliation.The third chapter is titled as"general issue on criminal substantial justice". Justice may be achieved in many fashions. Consequently it is necessary to distinguish between criminal substantial justice and justice through jungle fight. The criteria for measuring criminal substantial justice include that offenders should be punished; that innocent person should not be under investigation; that the offense and the punishment should be in proportion to each other. There are many conditions for achieving criminal substantial justice. But, among others, accurate ascertainment of the case facts on which the conviction and punishment are based, and correct application of substantial law are two fundamental ones. Without these two conditions, criminal substantial justice could not be achieved. A misjudged case means that the substantial justice is fail. This chapter presents the defining criteria of a misjudged case, and explores the relationships between a misjudged case and its redress, the relationships between a misjudged case and the subsequent responsibilities, and points out that the definition of a misjudged case is different from the two latter. Considering that conviction of an innocent person is foremost injustice in the substantial level, this chapter limits its focus on this most serious misjudged case when analyzing how a misjudged case comes into being and how to deal with a misjudged case.The forth chapter is titled as"criminal procedural justice". Firstly, the field in which procedural justice applies is analyzed, and effects of procedural justice in legal field and in non-legal field are compared. Based on classification of three kinds of procedural justices proposed by Professor Rawls, this chapter points out that criminal justice (especially criminal adjudication) is actually a kind of incomplete procedural justice, and it is not a kind of pure procedural justice. Referring to provisions concerning adjudication justice prescribed in UN human rights covenant, the international standards about criminal procedural justice are presented. Procedural justice, in large part, satisfies the psychological expectation of people about justice, so it is necessary to analyze the background of psychological origin of procedural justice. Then the significance of criminal procedural justice is analyzed. At last, this chapter analyzes the issue of criminal procedural justice in the context of China. It points out that we should keep a clear awareness when facing the idea and theory of procedural justice with a long history. It is important to hold an appropriate idea of procedural justice when China is launching its agenda to revise the criminal procedural law.The fifth chapter is titled as"the relationship of criminal substantial justice and procedural justice". After using as reference the theoretical approach of western political philosopher about the relationship of criminal substantial justice and procedural justice, it is discovered that fair procedure itself has some factors or features independent of correct result, but the fairness of procedure should not be extended so much as to be completely independent of correct result because in many cases fairness of procedure relies on the correction of result. Next, some debates about the relationship of criminal substantial justice and procedural justice in domestic and international academic circle are analyzed in detail. On the basis of view analysis, the author proposes own point. Then, taking exclusionary rules as examples, the relationship of criminal substantial justice and procedural justice in foreign laws is examined. After that, the analyzing standpoint turns to participants in proceedings. Through the analysis of data from field research and interview, this chapter concludes that what the participants in proceedings especially the parties need is not only the procedural justice, the fairness of result is more important. The party who institutes criminal proceedings purely for sake of procedural justice does not exist. At the end of this part, the author points out that substantial justice and procedural justice should be pay equal attention to from many perspectives and we should find a dynamic balance between them.