On Chinese Criminal Compensation System

Devised as an important legal system to guarantee human rights and restrict judicial rights, criminal compensation is also called criminal judicial compensation or compensation for miscarriage of justice. As proved in practice, there are still many legislative defects with Chinese criminal compensation system, which include that principle of liability-bearing is unclear, scope of compensation is too narrow, procedure of criminal compensation fails to display procedural justness and the issue of retroactivity fails to show its inherent humanitarianism.What's more, whether criminal investigation can be sued with administrative litigation isn't clarified. The reasons for the above-mentioned problems are :(1) with the influence of Chinese traditional law culture, people lack consciousness of right and equality; (2) judicatory system in China is not self-contained and jurisdiction is not fully independence, which accordingly cause Chinese criminal compensation system unreasonable in many aspects; (3) due to underdeveloped economy and limited compensation capacity, scope of compensation fails to cover all those should be compensated. Therefore, it is essential to attach much importance to legislatively modify Chinese criminal compensation system. On the one hand, principle of non-fault liability should be established as the principle of liability-bearing for criminal compensation and the scope of criminal compensation should be broadened to cover the issue of adjudicating misdemeanor heavily and the damage to people's legal rights due to judges` nonfeasance; on the other hand, it is necessary to perfect procedure of criminal compensation in China and rebuild compensation committee and then establish the supervising mechanism for affirming procedure. To timely revise Chinese criminal compensation system corresponds with the trend of world criminal compensation legislation and the situation of China as well as the necessity to build socialism country ruled of law. Besides, it will have great effects on the safeguard of human rights, the restriction of judicial power-abusing and the promotion of law-executing justly by judicial office.