Equality Of Procurator And Defense And Its Realization Mechanism

The equality of procurator and defense, as a principle of criminal procedure law, embodies the concept of equality. With the increase in human rights in modern society, many countries have accepted this principle, which is the guarantee of judge neutrality and judicial fairness.This concept stems from the widespread of equality and during modern criminal proceedings. The shape formed by accuser, defense and judge in judicial practice just likes an equicrural triangle. The judge locates in the point angle, who is just neutral; yet accuser and defense locate in the other two basic angles respectively, each of them get equal distance to the judge. There are three basic demands to achieve the balance of procurator and defense. Either accuser or defense has equal status, equal obligations and equal litigious rights. The realization of the equality of procurator and defense is benefit to procedural justice and substantive justice. In our country, the criminal procedure system is similar to inquisitorial system. Criminal suspects and defendants own certain litigation right during criminal lawsuit, yet the equality of procurator and defense has never been achieved either in criminal legislation or judicial practice. Both accuser and defense are still unequal, even some of their basic rights have not been fully ensured. All that is far from international convention had demanded. We can see that the accuser and defense are unequal under current criminal procedure system. The criminal procedure law amended in 1996 highlights human rights of criminal suspect and defendant, but accuser's right remains over that of defendant; besides, accuser and judge are on intimate terms. These are all important reasons for the inequality of procurator and defense.Currently, this principle has been established in state with adequate legal system. Both the assurance of human rights and crime punishment are all the important objectives of criminal proceedings. The presumption of innocence, the principle of"Ne Bis In Idem", the judicial review before trail and the neutrality of judges are all effective safeguard mechanism. When we construct this principle in our country, we should use the experience of other countries for reference; besides, we also should integrate our own reality and then set up a series of principle, bestowing defendants independent principle status and making them owning equal defense and aggressivity with procurators.