On The Standard Of Criminal Proof

The criminal proof standard is one of the principles that guiding and standardizing criminal proof activities. The establishment of China's proof standard of criminal litigation should under the direction of its peculiar legal direction of value.First, giving consideration to both justice of entity and justice of procedure. The justice could be guaranteed only by study legal facts. It is just in order to guarantee the true of case facts that the proof standard emerge as times require. The justice of entity is the first seeking of criminal proof standard. The non-justice in lawsuit procedure will weaken the justice of entity,and even influence its believability. So,criminal litigation must give consider both to entity justice and program justice.Second,reflecting organic integration of subjective and objective. In criminal procedure,identify facts could occur only under specially designated condition,time and space, it is one kind of subsequently confirm. So, the case facts come from such confirm can not always be fit with objective facts. The criminal facts that identified by judge is the conclusion that base on dynamic analyses evidences, it embodies judge's subjective knowledge and ability.Third, ensuring efficiency of criminal litigation. The justice resources are always limited. When designing criminal proof standard, we must think over how to promote the reasonable disposition and utilization of limited justice resources, and how to promote the raising entire efficiency of lawsuit. At same time, we must also try make sure the standard be practicable. Justice and efficiency should be one by one in lawsuit. Justice should be the most basic principle of lawsuit, and should be the reflection of lawsuit essence. The efficiency should be reside the second.Last, ensuring the accused's human rights. One of what the criminal procedure is not simple prosecutes activity, but what it is that provide a fare trial chance for criminal defendants. guarantee human rights is one of the purpose of whole criminal procedure laws.The proof standard of English-American legal system been divided into nine levels from high to low. Among them, the most representative standard is "beyond reasonabledoubt". It is also the highest standard in English-American litigation proof. The reasonable doubt is relatively with "imagine doubt" and "inference doubt". It means the doubt that the proof is not enough make a person who normal and non-prejudice to get rid of such doubt. In other words, the doubt shall be that a normal and non-prejudice person will still insist even though he has known all about the proof activities. It is not the doubt of pure mentality, it always possesses certain correlation with concrete case and background. It is also not one kind of absolute correct doubt, it does not seek to arrive the possibility of no wrong.The criminal proof standard in Continent legal system can be summarized as "be sure in heart" which basing on complete and abundant and does not have mutual contradiction use of evidences. The standard of "be sure in heart" is not come from wanton proof of judge, but come from his individual firmly believe in his heart. This kind of believe must be according to the sensible inference, and must base on complete and abundant and does not have mutual contradiction use of evidences. After investigation of evidence, the court must declare the defendant is innocent if the court can not affirm the defendant is guilty.Both of these two standards belong to the subjective standard, they have common values and they are human's experience summary that come from criminal proof activities. Both of them are two aspects of one standard, or speaks, they are two kinds of operations of one standard. Both of them possess clear identities: first, neither of these two criminal proof standards are try to achieve absolutely definite level. Second, both of them fix their criminal proof standards at a relative height, one of them is that get rid of reasonably doubting, the other is that evidence is enough to make a person firmly believe in heart. Third, both of "get rid of reasonable doubting" standard and "be sure in heart" standard contain some subjective factors come from judge and jury. The last, the standard of "make a person firmly believe in heart" belong to double affirm evaluate method, the standard of "be sure in heart" is a evaluate method of double negation. We should learn form such standards.The "objective true" has been the dominant criminal proof standard since the foundation of the PRC. It has occupy unanimously the position for a long time. Objective true theory has the following characteristic:First, It has extensibility. This standard be asked to cover all kind of criminal cases,no matter being serious crime case, or still misdemeanour case, no matter being the case that suitable to ordinary program, or the case that suitable to simply program, both of them must achieve the proof standard of "criminal facts should be clear and the evidence reliable and sufficient".Second, the standard of objective true be absolute in quality. No matter a public security organ want to conclude its investigation of a case and transfer the case to the People's Procuratorate for examination and decision, or the People's Procuratorate want to initial a public prosecution, or the the People's Court sentence a defendant to a criminal punishment, all of them must follow the standard of " the facts shall be clear and the evidence shall be sufficient and reliable". According to objective true theory, such kind of absolute shall be the highest value objective of all criminal cases, and all criminal cases must make every effort to realize it.Third, the proof responsibility is infinite. As long as the proof object still needs evidence to proof, as long as there are contradictory between evidences, as long as something happen to the evidence, the organ handle the case shall go on work, until achieve the proof standard of "criminal facts should be clear and the evidence reliable and sufficient".The "legal true" standard is the main challenger to objective true theory. The when verifying evidence and facts, People's Courts, the People's Procuratorates and the public security organs shall according to law ,no matter substantive law or adjective law it is. If they do so, the facts shall be thought as true by law, the facts are just "legal facts". Judges, procutators and investigators must, in accordance with the legally proscribed process, collect various kinds of evidence that can proof the criminal suspect's or defendant's guilt or innocence and the gravity of his crime, must be faithful to the facts. Any evidence must be verified before it can be used as the basis for deciding cases. In the decision of all cases, stress shall be laid on evidence, investigation and study. The evidence or fact ^hall be used if it is in accordance with law, otherwise, it shall not be used.The other challengers to objective true include "material true" and "dualism" etc. All in all, each of such theory has its rational contents and biases to some extent, and they should learn from each other's strong points so as to offset their weaknesses.This thesis base on China's features, learn wildly from other countries' theories, design new criminal proof standard as follows:The proof standard for place a case on file for investigation and prosecution is "main crime facts have be proofd by evidences". After investigation, the public security organ shall start preliminary inquiry into a case for which there is evidence that supports the facts of the crime. If the public security organ believes that there are facts of a crime and criminal responsibility should be investigated, it shall file a case. If it believes that there are no facts of a crime or that the facts are obviously incidental and do not require investigation of criminal responsibility, it shall not file a case. The concrete requirements of this standard as follows: one is that there are evidences that supports the facts' happen. The another one is that there are evidences to supports the criminal facts that been committed by some person. The last one is that the evidence proving criminal activities has been investigated and verified truly.The proof standard for transfer and check of prosecution is "be possible of conviction". The criminal investigation stage has its own particularity, the above standard not only fit to such particularity, but also adaptable to the quantity and quality of justice resources, to the administration of justice standard in China.The proof standard for prosecution is "the evidences have be formed into a intact chain". All facts that proof the true circumstances of a case shall be evidence. All evidences, such as material evidence, documentary evidence, testimony of witnesses, expert conclusions, records of inquests, statements of victims, statements and exculpations of criminal suspects of defendants, shall be true. All evidences connect each other and format a closure evidence chain, so as to guarantee that there are enough evidence for each fact.At last, the standard for try stage is "rational true", Namely the synthesis of objective true and legal true. The "rational true" should possess objectivity, subjectivity and legitimation. Among them, the objectivism means that the fact in criminal procedure must be proofd by objective evidence, and each fact shall has solid objective basis. The subjectivity means that the knowledge about case fact come from subjective thought and judgement. In criminal procedure, the facts identified by judge is not the objective fact, but the subjective fact that known after event. So, such identify a can not always fit objective facts. The criminal case facts that identified by judge is as a result of the conclusion base on dynamic analyses subjective evidences, embodied judge's knowledge and ability. The legitimation means that the study of fact shall be in according with law,any evidence must be legally verified before it can be used as the basis for deciding cases.If the facts of a case are clear, the evidence is reliable and sufficient, and the defendant is found guilty in accordance with law, he shall be pronounced guilty accordingly; if the defendant is found innocent in according with law, he shall be pronounced innocent accordingly; if the evidence is insufficient and thus the defendant cannot be found guilty, he shall be pronounced innocent accordingly on account of the fact that the evidence is insufficient and the accusation unfounded.The requirements of rational true standard as follows: first, each evidence shall be investigated and verified truely. Each of them shall fit with the requirements of objective, connective and lawful. The rule of "got rid of illegal evidence" must be followed. Second, the evidences can be confirmed each other. This point means that the criminal evidences must support, explain, identical mutually, and single evidence can not lead to a decision on a verdict. Under special circumstances that no direct evidence, the criminal facts can also be confirmed if the indirect evidences can identical mutually. The indirect evidences must be sufficient and reliable. Third, the contradiction between evidences shall be reasonably got rid of. The facts and circumstances in a criminal case are intricate. There are always some restrictions come from time, space, technology and so on when people try to collect and use evidences. The last, the proof aim of evidence shall be only one. The whole criminal procedure shall be a course that study step by step the criminal facts. This course shall study facts from outside to inside, deepen step by step, discard dross and selects essential and gets rid of the falses and retain the true, so as finally form the science and only conclusion. It should be only that criminal evidence directs, and has reasonably got rid of other probably.