Research On Problems Of China's Criminal Identification System

1Hi-tech crimes and intellectual crimes have dramatically increased with social progress and science development, thus criminal identification plays a more and more important role in investigating truth of cases. However, China's criminal identification system, constructed in 1950s of last century and derived from practical criminal investigations by the public security authority and judicial authority, has many problems and defects, which affects the judicial justice severely. This thesis analyzes the current state of China's criminal identification system and problems existed. Meanwhile, a comparative study is made on criminal identification systems between Continental Law System and Anglo-American Law System, which acts as the reference of assumptions proposed later on reconstruction of China's criminal identification system.This thesis contains three chapters. Chapter one makes a literature review on criminal identification; chapter two gives an analysis on current state of criminal identification system in China and problems in it; chapter three proposes assumptions on reconstruction of China's criminal identification system.Chapter one defines criminal identification, which shares the same features with judicial identification—scientific, legal, independent, just, and neutral. Following the historical evolution of criminal identification of domestic and overseas, it is obvious that criminal identification system has a long history and has already taken an important part in judicial system since long time ago. With social progress, the criminal identification system has also developed and improved. As a judicial system, it has significant functions and great value: first, it helps the judicial authority handle cases; second, it is beneficial to improve the efficiency of lawsuits; third, it helps the parties to receive trials.Chapter two applies three sections to describe current state and problems of criminal identification in China from different perspectives, then in depth analysis are provided. Section one focuses on closed-operation or opaque operation in criminal identification procedure, which causes problems in links such as starting, entrusting, accepting and implementing a criminal identification as well as in documenting identification conclusions and adopting admissible evidence, etc.Section two discusses the appraisal subject confusion in criminal identification from following aspects: the structure and management of identification organizations are not specified; the scope of lawful business of identification organizations is unclear; the identification organizations have no neutral status; the appraisers have no unified regulation on their qualification; and appraisers'rights have no guarantee.Section three explains the defects of current criminal identification from deficiency of the litigant right. Under current criminal identification system, the legal rights between the prosecution and defendant are seriously unbalanced. The suspect, the defendant, and the victim as well as their relatives have no starting right for a criminal identification and have no right to petition for abstention of certain identification organizations and appraisers. Moreover, they do not have the right to know and the right to participate in the identification procedure. Even though the law provides the parties the right of cross-examination to the identification conclusion, it can not be truly guaranteed.Chapter three is the most valuable part of this thesis. According to the problems and defects put forward in previous chapter, with a comparison and reference of the criminal identification systems from the two legal systems, four assumptions are proposed, aiming at reconstructing criminal identification system in China. These assumptions include reconstructing the criminal identification management system, reconstructing criminal identification appraiser system, reconstructing criminal identification procedure system, and reconstructing criminal identification conclusion cross-examination system.Section one introduces and summarizes features of criminal identification management system and structure of criminal identification organization in Continental Law System and Anglo-American Law System, then an analysis is given on their merits and demerits as well as development tendency respectively. Later, an assumption on reconstructing China's criminal identification management system and criminal identification organization is proposed from following three points. The establishment of criminal identification organization should be socialized in order to assure the identification conclusion is scientific, objective and just, and the identification organization as well as the appraiser is neutral. Abolish identification organizations in investigation department and establish technology identification assistant system in public security authority and prosecutorial department as to preserve evidence in time. Establish unified three levels social identification organizations lead by national judicial administration, which are subject to administrative licensing system. Meanwhile annual audit, administrative punishment, reserve fund and other systems are set to manage social identification organizations.Section two is on reconstructing criminal identification appraiser system. A comparison is made on the role and status a criminal identification appraiser has between domestic judicial systems and that overseas. Then, an assumption is made with reference to the identification right principle in Continental Law System: settle a system with Chinese Characteristics on identifying appraiser's qualification. That is, start a unified national judicial appraiser qualification examination, get appraisers register in accordance to their different majors, and annually audit judicial appraiser qualification certificate. Currently, China applies authority doctrine mode to appoint appraisers, which can not meet the demand of the reform to litigant doctrine mode. As a result, the appointment right should be given to the judge. With the establishment of expert assistant system, prosecution and defendant entrust experts respectively to participate in lawsuits and cross-examine the identification conclusion.Another important point in reconstructing criminal identification appraiser system is clearly identifying the appraiser's rights and obligations. This thesis presents five basic rights for appraisers: right to be paid, right to participate in a lawsuit, right to know the conclusion of cross-examination and judgment result, right to be away from personal infringement and right to cooperate with other technicians. As to obligations, two points are emphasized, namely obligation to testify at court and obligation to petition for abstention. Appraiser's legal liabilities within duty scope, including civil liability, criminal liability and administrative liability, are the guarantee to implementation of criminal identification system and regulate the appraiser's behaviors from different perspectives.Section three is about reconstructing criminal identification procedure system, following each step of a criminal identification. Starting right of an identification goes to the court, while the prosecution and defendant have equal rights to require an identification, to recommend an appraiser or to negotiate. Right of entrustment belongs to the court, so if an identification organization is to handle a case, a contract must be signed between the identification organization and the court in order to clarify the rights and obligations respectively. In the process of identifying, the judge as well as the prosecution and defendant have the right to present. This kind of supervision system is beneficial to improve quality and creditability of identification conclusion. Relevant regulations and principles are necessary in writing an identification document, which is a logical reasoning procedure of the appraiser.Section four is on reconstructing criminal identification conclusion cross-examination system. Before cross-examination, a complete announcement is given. In the court, expert assistants participate in trial and cross-questioning is applied. These systems give the prosecution and defendant equal power to debate. The process of a fully cross-examination provides the judge the opportunity to clarify the identification conclusion has evidence effect or not.The research of criminal identification system belongs to an interdisciplinary category, which requires the researcher have solid theory foundation and rich practical experience in different disciplines. This thesis is just a tentative study of the wide range and far from perfect. Other further and in depth researches will be conducted in the future.