Research On The Rules Of Confession

The confession rules are key rules in the criminal evidence rules of ourcountry, which including rule of evidence collection,cross-examination,exclusion and corroboration. The rule of testification is relevant to legalconfession is also an important part of the confession rules. The confessionrules are always closely related to issues such as human rights protection,justice of the procedure, etc. At the same time, issues of confession is theoutstanding problem that has been existing in our country's criminal judicialpractice for a long time. Company with the voice of human rights protectingand our trial reform that change criminal trail system from inquisitional intoadversary ,It's urgently to construct an integrated system of confession rules inour criminal proceeding.Part one Define confessionHow to define confession is the precondition of improving and correctlyapplying confession rules. But the scholars hold different opinions on thedefinition of confession for they hold different opinions on the scope ofconfession.. To the author's opinion, confession is the statement of theaccused about the facts to policeman, prosecutor and the judge, includingadmission, exculpatory statement and revealing the complicity's guilty.The accused could confess his guilty or plead innocence at any time duringthe whole procedure in written form, or just in oral. To the provable value ofconfession, it's direct evidence with complicated content.Part two Summarize the rules of confessionThe standards of voluntary and authenticity are the requirement of legalconfession in modern rule of law. The rules of confession in other country aremainly including the rules of confession , the rules of corroboration, and theright of silence system. All the rules emphasize the mainly two foundationvalue behind rules of confession --voluntary and authenticity. This twostandard got legal force from rules of confession. That is, the criminalprocedure law regulates a series of rules according to the standard ofvoluntary and authenticity, such as the rules of collecting the confession,putting forward the confession, adopting the confession, and excluding theconfession. The relative subjects should take the denial result for their illegalprocedural actions.A lot of foreign countries, including countries of common law legalsystem and countries of continental law legal system ,all regulate series ruleson confession according to the standards of voluntary and authenticity, such asthe rule of illegal confession, the rule of corroboration, the rule of silenceright.Part three The status quo of the rules of confession in our country.Our Criminal Procedure Law puts the duty of statement on the defendant,meanwhile, it regulates the limitation to the means of collecting the confessionand the rule of corroboration for ensuring the authenticity and the validity. Butour Criminal Procedure Law lacks the regulars on the concrete standard andproceedings, so the rules of confession have not been established completelyin the judicial practice. Improving the rules of confession is the requirement of"constitution paramount". Meanwhile, it meets the requirement of humanright protection and judicial justice. Farther more, it is beneficial to insure theauthenticity of the confession and to solve the problem of the defendant'swithdrawing a confession。Apart from the causation of imperfect legislation,there are several factors are in the way of establishing an integrated system ofconfession rules. The first one is our criminal procedural system which isaimed at objective reality, The second one is the mission of our criminalprocedural law which is focus on punishing crime but neglect human rightprotection. To fulfill this mission, the prosecutors often ignore, even trespassthe defendant's human right. The third one is the ability of the judicial organ tocarry out the rules of confession, which is restricted by several factor suchas our judicial tradition and the judicial material conditions.Part four Exploreing how to improve the rules of confession.In the author's opinion, we should improving the rules from five aspects:the rule of evidence collection, the rule of proving, the rule ofcross-examination, the rule of excluding the illegal evidence and the rule ofcorroboration.The rule of collecting the confession is consist of the rule of interrogatingsubject, the rule of interrogating procedure, the rule of means of interrogating.As to the interrogating subject, the author argues that it must be the policemen.As to the interrogating procedure, to embody procedure impartiality, theauthor considered that our evidence law should regulate the condition ofinterrogate, the rule of right notice, the rule of supervising the interrogatingsubject, the rule of making interrogating record. As to the problem of how toimproving the rule of the means of interrogating, the author thinks that weshould clarify the standard of illegal interrogating measures. If only the illegalmeasure could compel the accused make confession unwillingly, we couldassert that the interrogating behavior is illegality .For how to establish the rule of legal confession certifying, we shouldlegislate different rule on the burden proof according to different proceduralphase. The prosecutor should take preliminary burden of proof to testify theconfession legality during the course of prosecuting. And during the trialproceeding, if the defendant claim the confession is illegal, he or she mustputs forward proof to cause reasonable suspect of the judge on the legality ofthe evidence, then the prosecutor must undertake the burden of proof on thelegality of the confession he had put forward.About the cross-examination rule of confession, we must clarify that thetwo parties of the cross-examination is the prosecutor and the defendant, thejudge should not be another party. moreover, the rule should regulate that thescope of cross-examination must be the authenticity and voluntary ofconfession.On the issue that how to improving the rule of excluding illegalconfession, the author considers legislator should improve it on three aspectaccording to the requirement of judicial justice, judicial recourses in being andour concrete situation .Firstly, clarifying when the defendants could claim toexclude illegal confession during the proceeding. Secondly, defining the scopeof the illegal confession that could be excluded. Thirdly , deciding if "the fruitof the poisonous tree "can be adopted.About the rule of confession corroboration, the author believes that it isnot integrated, so the author's advices are: (1)ensuring what facts of the caseshould be testified by the corroboration; (2) ensuring what the testificationstandard the confession corroboration should be reached;(3)ensuring whichevidences could be the corroboration.