| Since the implementation of the modified Chinese criminal procedure law on January 1st ,1997, the Chinese criminal trial pattern has transformed from the "inquiring system", under which the defendant is tried by the judge according to the indict and evidence is presented and examined, to the "adversary system" which especially emphasizes the procedural functions of prosecution, defence and justice. Taking the transformation as axes, a series of innovations have been carried through accordingly. Chinese criminal trial procedures are primarily considered to be characterized by adversary system thereafter. The new trial mode requires that witnesses state their testimony before court as the litigant and be inquired by the judge, so the court can apperceive the witnesses' capacity to attest, examine and verify the dependability and testifying capacity of the testimony.However, in the following 5 years after the new criminal procedure law's implementation, the issue of witnesses' appearance before court, which may guarantee the success of trial mode innovation, has been far from being solved. In the practice of criminal justice, a great number of witnesses do not appear in court, which makes the two parties have to read the testimony for themselves respectively. When the two parties' understanding to the common testimony differs apparently, they have no way to verify and argue to testify its authenticity, and the judge can only rely on the written materials presented by the two parties to examine after trial, which greatly decrease the anticipative effect of the trial mode innovation. It's obvious that that witnesses do not appear in court influences the implementation of the new law badly and becomes the bottleneck that impedes the success of Chinese criminal trial mode innovation. It's pragmaticly significant to rationally reflect on the issues of difficulties for the witness to appear before court. According to the fact in our country, the author attempts to explore the relative systems, both domestic and foreign. Based on the comparative research, suggestions aiming at perfecting the system for witnesses' appearance in criminal court will be presented to change the current judicial fact.This article includes four parts:First part This part starts with researching status quo of witnesses' appearance in criminal court and gives an analysis of why it's that difficult. In the author's opinion, there are both social reasons and legislative reasons for the witnesses' difficulties to appear in court. The author explores the two types of reasons detailedly, pointing out that the legislative reason is the root of witnesses' difficulty to appear in criminal court. Together with studying the background of the modification of Chinese criminal procedure law, the author analyzes the reasonability and defect of the regulations on witnesses' appearance in criminal court in the foregoing law.Second part In this part, the author describes the significance of witnesses' appearance in criminal court. The "direct wordage" principle and the "exclude hearsay" principle are required by the adversary system, so witnesses' appearance in court will be the necessary need of the above principles. Witnesses' appearance in court meets the regulations of 《International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights》and is urgently required by China's acceding to WTO. It also safeguards the dignity of the law and helps increase the citizens' legal consciousness and realize rule of law and due process. No doubt, it will help the judge with examining the facts of case roundly, well and truly and makes sure that the prosecution and defence argue equally, which is very significant to the criminal procedure's democratization and into the open.Third part The author gives a simple introduction of the relative regulations and systems in UK, USA, Japan, Italy and Hongkong in this part. Some comparative analysis are also made between the Chinese regulations on witnesses' appearance in court and that of the foregoing...
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