On The Criminal Standard Of Proof

Standard of criminal proof is one of the key issues in criminal-proof theory. It is of great significance to decide a scientific & reasonable standard of criminal proof. From the view of substantive law, the processing result of a case depends on the proof standard and the fact that it is rigorous or loose in practice, though the quantum and degree of the proof remain unchanged. From the view of procedure law, proof standard is the mark that whether the onus probandi (burden of proof) on the subject is ended. The system of proof standard is generated based on the rule of strict burden of proof. People put forward the new cognition on the judicial fact.ln recent years, the standard of criminal proof has been widely discussed.In China diverse appellations and descriptions were given to the standard of criminal proof and no unified intension and extension are available until now. As a matter of fact, standard of criminal proof is the level of persuasion when a judge could give a guilty verdict based on the proofs.In common law system the criminal proof should be beyond reasonable doubt. In civil law system, the criminal proof is evaluated through inner conviction. Though different in description, actually they are the same. Grounded on the theory of reasonable lawsuit, both of them deny absolute determinateness. They set up the proof standard grounded on the subjective thinking as well as the proofs. However, the criminal-proof standard of China puts emphasis on objective facts while not on the subjectivity, unilateral emphasize the fact of affirm reality, hard confidenece, inconvenience operation. About the facts that meet the standard of criminal proof, currently there are three viewpoints popular in the theory field: Theory of objective reality, Theory of subjective reality and Theory of legal reality. These viewpoints tend to introject into each other.Setting up the standard of criminal proof should be based on the epistemology and give attention to publish criminal and protect human right, ensure efficiency and justice, order and freedom. The standard of criminal proof should incorporate the objectivity, subjectivity and legal attributes into itself. The premise of the penalty justification comes from the correctness of penalty. The ultimate purpose of criminal lawsuit is to achieve substantive justice. The standard of criminal proof should be objective. The persistent pursuit of objectivity in criminal lawsuit is possible, with epistemology as the theory basis and proof-based verdict in practice. As the proof is freelyevaluated through inner conviction, subjectivity is another aspect of proof. The judge can discover more facts, compare and evaluate these facts to realize the substantive justice. The process of criminal proof involves the language and actions. The language is the tool to achieve agreement on the objective facts and decide whether they meet the standard of criminal proof. The subject could recognize the object and depict the object through the language. It is inevitable that the objectivity of criminal proof is interfered by the subjectivity. It takes the thick subjective color when it walks into the subjective world from the comfortable thing of the objective realm. The standard of criminal proof takes the object attribute. Many values that belong to subjectivity have penetrated into the standard of criminal proof. The level of discovery of objective facts is restricted by the proofing rule. Actually, the objective facts are only recovered, on the basis of proofs, by following the strict procedures in the relatively confined time and space of lawsuit. A world of law is thus built from the procedures of proofing. The dependence on the procedures brings the criminal proofing only an appearance of justice. To get the true results, logical prerequisites are created, that is, the standard of criminal proof also has legal attributes.The result of criminal proof has objectivity, subjectivity and legal attributes. As the measurement of the proofing result, the standard of criminal proof sh...