Presume Innocent Until Proven Guilty

The principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"is a criminal judicial rule known all over the world, as well as an assured and protected principle of the International Covenant. Though it was first made in the western countries, it reflects the general rules of the development of the criminal prosecution as a significant part of the constitutional rights of a citizen. As the judicial system is civilizing, democratizing and improving, the principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"is commonly respected and implemented worldwide. In the area of law, the principle of Presumption of Innocence as a basic consumption of protecting human rights and jurisdiction is acknowledged by all and catches more and more people's attention."Presume innocent until proven guilty"refers to the situation that the already got evidence can not prove the defendant guilty as well as exclude the criminal suspect of the defendant, and according to the principle of"Presumption of Innocence", the defendant should be presumed innocent by judicial proceeding and law so that an act of procedure ends."Presume innocent until proven guilty"is the specific expression of the principle of"Conviction and Penalty According to Law"and"Presumption of Innocence". It denies the old concepts such as"lightly punish the actions under suspicion"and"lately punish the actions under suspicion".Evidence Doctrine must be emphasized when it refers to"Presume innocent until proven guilty". Evidence Doctrine is the most important part of judicial proceeding. The conviction and punishment of the defendant should be based on specific and sufficient evidence, or the defendant should not be declared guilty or punished. The cases without sufficient evidence should be dealt with in time during the process of criminal investigation, presenting a public prosecution and trial so that the legal interests of the parties will not be damaged. The second section of the one hundred and sixtieth article of the Criminal Procedure Law of PRC regulates:"if with insufficient evidence the defendant cannot be convicted, the trail should be that the accused crime does not exist and the defendant is not guilty since the evidence is not enough."This illustrates the dealing methods of the cases under suspicion by law. But, we have not set up the principle of"Presumption of innocence"so many different understandings of this problems are existing among our theorists and in the judicial practices. So I try to analyze the present statement and the existing problems of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"on the base of the introduction to the concept and the significance of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"; its instructive importance on judicial trial in our country; its obstacle to realize. Finally I try to argue that how to implement the principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"in legislation, judicial administration and public concepts in order to protect human rights and to build a harmonious society.This essay is divided into three parts:First part is about the general institutional concept of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"in our country. To study a system, we should know the concept and then get a further understanding based on the concept. In this part, first the meaning of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"is introduced. It means when the court hears a case, if the accusing party cannot provide sufficient evidence to prove the defendant guilty, the court should declare the defendant not guilty. Second, the importance of the principle includes that it benefits the implementation of protecting human rights, improves the effects of proceedings, promotes justice of the judicial trail and protect the social interests. Third, the measurement of the crimes under suspicion is introduced, which includes that the evidence for conviction is not true, the facts of the case has no necessary evidence to prove to compose a crime and the evidence of the whole case cannot fall a unique conclusion. At last, some circumstances which needs disposing according to the principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty"are illustrated. Firstly, the suspicious crime meets the situation that the evidence cannot prove. Secondly, when dealing with the suspicious crime, the court must follow the principle of benefiting the defendant. Thirdly, the defendant is not responsible for the duty of proof.The second part is about the current situation and the current problems of presume innocent until proven guilty in our country. There are many cases of presumption of innocence in our real life, if we depend on law cases which proved only by indirect evidences, it could not compose the system of indirect evidences in that lacking some links; it refers to whether there is the contradiction between the evidences which compose a crime, which can not be excluded; if some cases composed of unlawful occupied purposes as the constitutes requirements, the defendants would not have the unlawful occupied purposes. All these require judicial staff to use it flexible in the practice. To deal with the problems of presume innocent until proven guilty rightly, that is to say the evidence insufficient certificate the innocence, which requires the judicial staff to be loyalty to the law and be proficient in professional work. Especially the check and judgment of evidences as the basic skills of judicial staff should be mastered expertly. This part firstly introduced the current situation of the legislative and judicial about presume innocent until proven guilty in our country, which certificated our country has established the executed the principles of presume innocent until proven guilty in some cases. Next, it introduces the problems about the principle of the"Presume innocent until proven guilty". Then it emphasizes and illustrates the issue of execution and commitment of principles of the"Presume innocent until proven guilty"in our country from the legislation, the justice and the social concepts. In legislation, the principles of the presumption of innocence do not established, the privilege of silence is lack, the commitment of principles of the presume innocent until proven guilty is not entirely and completely. In judicial practice, the function of police, procurator ate and court is confused, inquire system of the misjudged case is non-existent; the judicial independence is not really established. The trend of cruel torture and heavy penalty are still existent in social concepts.In the third part, there are some considerations about how to sound applications of law about principles of"Presume innocent until proven guilty". There are two aspects in this part; the first aspect is about the legislative perfection of the application of the principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty". For example, to establish and consummate the principles of presume innocent until proven guilty, eliminate principles of illegal evidence, endowment rights to the defendants, the privilege of guilty to the suspects, the establishment the principles of double jeopardy. The second aspect is about the practicing perfection of the application of the principle of"Presume innocent until proven guilty". For example, protect the rights of judicial staff according to the law, create a harmonious social atmosphere actively, and improve the legal consciousness and legal quality of people as well as emphasize the human rights.We believe that Choose wrongful judgments or erroneous free, reflects the different views of people on judicial justice. It is a problem of value orientation that is to say whether the personal rights first or the whole society's rights first. Our tradition is that the whole society's rights are superior to the personal rights. The legislative justice pursues entire justice, in other words, the common justice by law. Judicial justice pursues individual justice, that is to say the justice for each case. Judicial activity goes around specific case, thus we must take every specific case seriously, in order to pursue the judicial justice,...