A Study On The Principle Of Forced Self - Incrimination

Privilege against self-incrimination dated from17th century in England. Currently, many countries have established it as a basic principle in their criminal procedure law. The united nations regard this privilege as a lowest standard of an impartial trial for the accused."Forcing anyone to provide evidence proving his/her own guilt is prohibited." was written in article50of the criminal procedure law of PRC in2013.Mean while we can also read the provisions "the criminal suspect shall answer the investigators’questions truthfully". The paper aims at exploring the privilege systematically on the hope of helping improve the criminal procedure law and foster the reform of criminal procedure system in China. The paper is divided into the following parts:Chapter1is the general description of the privilege against self-incrimination. This chapter introduced the history and development of the privilege, analyzed the philosophy behind the privilege and tried to have clear explanation of this privilege for better understand and application of the principle.Chapter2is "study on the privilege against self-incrimination abroad". This chapter focused on and compared the extraterritorial regulation and development of the privilege so that China can transfer the principle better.Chapter3is the present provisions and problems about the privilege in China. This chapter analyzed briefly the provisions about this privilege in the new criminal procedure law and pointed out the conflict between the privilege and article118.Chapter4is the significance of the established privilege against self-incrimination talked of the theory and practice significance of the privilege in the criminal procedure in China.Chapter5is the deficiency and improvement of the provisions in China. This chapter suggested that we should establish the privilege against self-incrimination as a basic principle with some exception. At the same time, the chapter advised we should delete article118. Last, the chapter maintained that we can guarantee the application of the provisions by applying the rule of informing, lawyer involved in interrogating a criminal suspect, the voluntary confession rule.