On The Protection Of Criminal Witnesses

Evidence is the key point of criminal procedures and the basic of finding the facts of cases. No litigant phase or judicial proceeding can do without evidence. So, evidence is the foundation for the public security or judicial organs and participant in proceedings to engage in lawsuits. It is also necessary means to expose crime, verify crime and investigates criminal duty lawfully, mean while, the basic to realize judicial justice.Testimony of witnesses is one of the important categorizations of evidence in criminal proceeding, they are of far ranching importance for finding out and determining the facts of cases. However, in practice, it is much usual that witnesses do not appear in court, refuse to testify or even give false testimony. The witnesses'not appearing in court is quite often. Because it's usually in serious cases that criminal witnesses are needed. They would face more threaten and hurt. Considering this, they shrink back. To solve this problem, we should require and emphasize that citizens should raise their moral standard and consciousness of testify, meanwhile, emphasize their duty to testify, at the same time, we ant ignore the protection for their personnel and property rights. To change the current situation, in which criminal witnesses unwilling to or dare not to testify, a key measure is to improve the personnel protection system in China and offer comprehensive and operational protection to criminal witnesses.The author chose this subject because our real criminal procedure system lacks of specific provisions about the personnel protection of criminal witnesses. There are only a few articles of law, in which the protection to witnesses is mentioned. But compared with those in some advanced countries, they are far not enough. Meanwhile, the present rate of criminal witnesses is low and criminal witnesses always suffer something bad after presenting in the court. All these reflect great backwardness of the laws about the protection of criminal witnesses in China. To solve this problem, we need to make more research on the system of the personnel protection of criminal witnesses and develop a specific system about the personnel protection of criminal witnesses.Through contrasting the domestic and foreign situations, analyzing the demonstrations, collecting relative materials, monographs, analyzing the current situation of failing to efficiently protect the criminal witnesses in China and searching for the theoretical basis on protecting criminal witnesses'safety, this essay spoke volume for the necessity and great significance to protect criminal witnesses. Combining the research on foreign legal system about criminal witness protection with our own, this essay made an expectation for solving the current problem in China, meanwhile, offered some making-up thoughts for improving the personal protection system.