The Ability Of Evidence Of Character Evidence In Criminal Proceedings

Character Evidence Rule is one of the most important rules of Evidence in Evidence Law in Common Law. However, compare to Illegal Evidence Exclusion Rule, Hearsay Evidence Exclusion Rule, etc. which are"shining pearl"of Evidence Law in Common Law, character evidence hasn't draw home scholars'attention. Although character evidence is not assigned with a clear position in civil criminal law, it plays as an important part in juridical practice. It is an extremely abnormal phenomenon that blank in legislation is in sharp contrast to common in judicial in using character evidence. Therefore, the ability of character evidence should be well and deeply studied, in order to do my best to construct the character evidence rule in criminal evidence law in our country.There are four parts in this paper, about 3,4000 words total in the text. It provides some legislation visions and reform suggestions to construct the character evidence rule in evidence law in China with comparing the foreign legislative experience combined with the attitude of China's legislative provisions and judicial practice in the ability of character evidence.The first part is the summary part, mainly focus on parsing terms"character","character evidence","ability of evidence",etc. which are included in this paper. Parsing doesn't mean list many authority definition, but providing personal opinions after clearly explaining their definitions, characters, appearance, which is based on composite comparing and systemic recognizing. The creative view in this part is categorizing character evidence into two forms. One form is character evidence that directly as disputed facts in the cases, the other one appears when we require using character inference. With the help of chart that shows process of character inference, we can analyzing and get to the point in a more directly way.In the second part, the author analyzes the possibly positive and passive result if character evidence is admitted in criminal procedure in connection with some related characters of character evidence. Admitting character evidence can be positively helpful when recognizing the criminal behavior, treating defendant objectively and fairly and corroborating witness's testimony. However, we need to aware that admitting character evidence could be given excessivly highly probative value by the judicators, confusing the bone fo contention easily, reducing efficiency of action, and even violating privacy, obstructing progress of action. Only when we have a thorough understanding of character evidence as well as develop its advantages and avoid disadvantages, it can be used to construct a more scientific and reasonable character evidence rule in China.In the third part, the author compares and analyzes relevant provisions of the ability of character evidence in legislation between Common Law and Civil Law. The author also points out that the topic about the ability of character evidence doesn't only exist in Common Law, but also in Civil Law, but less complete than Common Law. However, we can not neglect it when we analyse the foreign legislative experience. The author categorizes character evidence as good character evidence and bad character evidence, and compares different attitudes to the ability of character evidence by two legal systems in three different angles: defendant, victim and witness. What's more, with mainly focusing on differences as above, the author analyzes the legislative background of the admissibility of character evidence deeply on three factors in Common Law system and Civil Law system: the judicator,the evidence system and the way of witnesses to testify. The purpose is find the best attitude for the ability of character evidence in legislation and juridical practice in our country through the comparative above.The last part is the most important part. At first, the author points out that evidence like character evidence is existing in legislation and juridical practice in our country, especially common in phrase of sentencing. Without clearly defining it in legislation, tribunal shows ambiguous attitude for character evidence. Then the author analyze the root cause of the current situation described above to achieve the purpose of"know why". In the end, the author propose the suggestions to legislation of the ability of character evidence as well as the supporting mechanisms based on the anylysis above. The core point of this part is, our country needs to build"limited admissibility"rule for character evidence which is in line with the juridical practice, deal with the awkward situation that definition of character evidence is out of legislation as soon as possible. In the mean time, academic circles should dedicate more studies on theory of character evidence and proving standard theory, those studies will build solid theoretical foundation for the issue of character evidence in legislation.