A Study About China's Criminal Witness System

The testimony of witness is important in criminal procedure. It is the basic requirement in modern trial system and the key to guarantee the judicial justice for witness to be present in person to give testimony .In China, it is more important for the reform of criminal trial . But in judicial practice, the witness is always not present in person to give testimony. There are many reasons, such as the witness can't be present for some objective reasons, or he is not willing to be present because of being influenced by the traditional culture. But in my opinion, the main reason is that the legal system itself isn't perfect. Without complete and practical witness system, there is no basis and safeguard in practice. In this paper, I make a detailed study of several important aspects of criminal witness system , and present some legislation suggestions , in order to make the criminal witness system of our country more perfect, change the situation that the witness isn't present in person to give testimony, and promote the reform of the criminal trial. There are five chapters: In the first chapter, I make a study about the competency of witness, because the competency of witness is the premise and base on which the witness can be present to give evidence . I present the legislation suggestion that any person who knows the truth should be competent witness. But if he can not understand the questions the other people raise, or give the answers that can be understood by the other people, he isn't the competent witness. And the same time, I make a detailed explanation about the competency of several special sorts of witness. In the second chapter, on the basis of fact that there is only rough requirement that the witness must be present in personto give testimony , but no detailed rule about the legal responsibility if the witness isn't present, I advise that we should establish the rule of hearsay and legal responsibility the witness must bear if he refuses to be present to give testimony. In the third chapter, I suggest that in order to defend some important social relationship, conform to the developing trend of the world civilization, and respect the traditional ethics, the witness should be exempted the duty to give testimony under some special conditions. In the fourth chapter, I advise to establish the immunity system of witness, so that we can solve the problem that if we admit the privilege against self-incrimination , we can hardly proof the truth. In the fifth chapter, according to the legal principle that right and responsibility are uniform, we must make the system of security protection and economic compensation more perfect, so that the witness is willing to be present in person to give testimony. I believe that we can change the situation that the witness is hardly present in person to give testimony in the judicial practice, by perfecting our criminal witness system .