Study On Criminal Disclosure System

There is a huge body of literature on criminal disclosure, but studies are few and far between which adopt a systematic approach or an institutional perspective. This dissertation sets criminal disclosure system as object of research, and conducts research on the fundamental rationale of criminal disclosure system. The present study consists of seven parts:introduction, a conceptual analysis of the criminal disclosure system, the essential theory of the criminal disclosure system, basic components of criminal disclosure system, operational procedure of criminal disclosure system, a review of the current situation of our country’s criminal disclosure system, construction of our country’s criminal disclosure system.The introduction presents a brief explanation on the value and significance of the research topic, sums up the current research on the criminal disclosure systems both at home and abroad, delimits the scope of this study, and gives a brief introduction of my research methods.Chapter 1 is a conceptual analysis of the criminal disclosure system. Criminal disclosure originated from the pursuit of trial justice and litigation efficiency by means of avoiding evidence surprise and the judge’s misjudgment. Criminal disclosure refers to litigious activities in which the prosecutor and the defender mutually disclose evidence material related to the case in accordance with certain rule or order in pretrial procedure or court procedure. The criminal disclosure system is the system of norms, composed of a set of essential elements for criminal disclosure such as basic principles, parties, scopes, time, place, operation procedures, rights and responsibilities, etc. The criminal disclosure system is composed of basic principles, substantive and procedural elements, and an operational procedure. The criminal disclosure system was a product of the adversary system when it evolved to a certain stage. Some countries which belong to the category of continental law system in the traditional sense introduced a criminal disclosure system after their litigation model was transformed and adjusted. The influence of criminal disclosure system has been expanding continuously, even to this day, and the criminal disclosure system in itself has been gradually improved through continual change.Chapter 2 deals with the essential theory of the criminal disclosure system. Criminal disclosure is an important component of the pretrial procedure; it is crucially connected with the procedure of plea of guilty, issues of arrangement and pretrial conference. The value of the criminal disclosure system lies in guaranteeing the litigation rights of the defendant, achieving equality between the prosecutor and the defender based on the idea of due process, promoting the discovery of the case’s objective truth, and realizing judicial benefit in criminal proceedings. But it has limitations which weaken trial and could increase the possibility of the threatening of the witness and the forging of evidence. The basic principles of criminal disclosure include the principle of prohibiting presentation of evidence if not being disclosed, the principle of reciprocity of disclosure, the principle of limitation of disclosure scopes, the principle of autonomy rights of disclosure, and the principle of judicial review. The criminal disclosure system is a key safeguarding mechanism for the adversarial trial procedure to operate effectively. Under an inquisitorial system, a criminal disclosure system does not exist in the institutional sense.Chapter 3 deals with the basic components of the criminal disclosure system. The parties of a criminal disclosure include the prosecution party and the defense party. The scopes of criminal disclosure include conviction evidence and sentencing evidence; it also includes new evidence which may be presented during the procedure of first instance, the procedure of second instance and the retrial procedure; the specific scopes are carefully divided into the evidence scopes of the prosecutor’s disclosure and the evidence scopes of the defender’s disclosure. The safeguard mechanism of criminal disclosure refers to the legal responsibility system, which includes a system of civil responsibility, a system of administrative responsibility and a system of criminal responsibility. The judge isn’t the party of criminal disclosure, but has the power of interpretation and judicial review in criminal disclosure.Chapter 4 deals with the operational procedure of the criminal disclosure system. The system of operation procedure of the criminal disclosure system includes a general procedure, a simplified procedure, a special procedure and a relief mechanism. The general procedure of criminal disclosure includes essential element such as initiation, time and place, means, settlement of disputes, etc. the simplified procedure of criminal disclosure has two types:automatic disclosure with the judge’s examination, a combination of the judge’s preliminary hearing and disclosure. The special procedure of criminal disclosure includes the disclosure procedure of cases of public prosecution which has no defender, the disclosure procedure of new evidence, the disclosure procedure of cases of private prosecution, and the disclosure procedure of cases which civil suit collateral to criminal proceedings. The relief mechanism of criminal disclosure includes substantive relief and procedural relief.Chapter 5 is a review of the current situation of our country’s criminal disclosure system. Stipulations of existing laws and judicial interpretations in our country, which involve reading case files of the defender and disclosing evidence, exhibit the embryonic form of a criminal disclosure system. The analyses of the current situation and the defects of our country’s criminal disclosure show that such problems as evidence surprise, which is not eradicated despite repeated prohibition, and the weakening of court hearing, are indeed the result of the coincidence of many factors, but the imperfectness of criminal disclosure is the most fundamental cause. Hence the necessity and urgency to construct our country’s criminal disclosure system.Chapter 6 deals with the construction of our country’s criminal disclosure system. The construction or design of legal articles of our country’s criminal disclosure system should include or embody the following basic contents:establishment of basic principles of criminal disclosure, stipulation of basic systems of criminal disclosure, and designing of a meticulous procedure of criminal disclosure. The cooperative system of our country’s criminal disclosure system needs to include a system of preliminary judge, a system of public defender and a system of pretrial conference, etc.