The Study Of "in Dubio Pro Reo" In Criminal Procedure

The rule of "in dubio pro reo" (no punishment in doubt case) was derived from presumption of innocence. And presumption of innocence has become an essential item of criminal procedure commonly acknowledged and established in modern states under legal systems, and has been regarded as one of threshold standards established and proceeded in the school of criminal judicature. Only after the establishment of presumption of innocence, then the rule of "in dubio pro reo" could be rigidly established. Because of the influence of most factors including our despotic centralism tradition and the politicization of judicial problems, the sense of presumption of innocence was absorbed in the provisions of Item 12 under Criminal Procedure Law revised in 1996. Although Item 3 of Article 162 of Criminal Procedure Law read as "in dubio pro reo" that the doubted guilt of defendant could not exist if lacking evidence, however due to other affiliated rules supporting to "in dubio pro reo" failed to be established each other, the incomplete legislation caused lots of cases sentenced with criminal doubtful points in judicial practices, which also brought forward many injustices and misjudged cases. Therefore, it's possible to fundamentally eliminate the sentence of criminal doubtful points and to prevent the occurrence of injustices and misjudged cases merely by means of the acknowledgement and establishment of presumption of innocence in our country, the reference of legislation experiences of two legal systems, the establishment of detailed evidence rules, the deployment application of "in dubio pro reo", the establishment of misjudged cases evaluation systems, the reforming of judicial committee systems, the function adjustments of political and legal committee and so on.