Right To Silence In Research

The right to silence is an old topic.The judicial principle of ancient Roaman Laws concetning natural justice contains contents of the right to silence. " Justice never calls for anyone to confess his own crimes. " In canon laws, Saint Paul clearly poins out in the 12th century, " People need only confess their sins to God not anyone others. " It can be said that the right to silence has been heated recently .The International Treaty of Citizen s Rights and Political Rights passed in the 21st Session of United Nations in 1966 clearly stipulates that " any one should not be forced to prove his own crimes. " Since China signed and joined the treaty on Oct.5,1998,the legal academic circle began to research and discuss on the right to silence.In the latest several years,the legal academic circle of the criminal procedure law started ever-deepening discussion.In practice,some judicial organ began to push " zero oral confession " so as to protect the right to silence of suspects.Generally, scholars all believe that the argumentation over the right to silence itself is a prohress,because the concern and discussion over this problem embodies that the elevation of democratic concept and legal ideology.But,stricly speaking,the reasonable consideration and critical review over the to silence have not begun yet,So, this dissertation,under the premise of protecting human rights and punishing crimes,tries to correctly analyze the scientific contents of the right to silence and puts forward some personal viewpoints on establishing the system of the right to silence suitable for the situation of China.The first part makes a summarized descriptionk of the emergence and development of the right to silence and reveals the evolvememts of the right to silence and historical conditions for its development, viz "the right of not accusing oneself " ,based on the teaching of Christianity,evolved from authority oath inquisitional procedure,then evolved to the right to silence. From a right in domestic law,then it evolved to a basic human right reogni zed internationally.Perceivds from its long evolvement process,we can drawthe following conclusion:A.No matter in Anglo-American law System and Continental Laws System,the right to silence was established after denying " the obligation to confess" .B.The right to silence is not an isolated right,its emergence and development were in the same pace with temporary development in politics, law and social order.The latter provided necessary conditions for it. Although great diffdrence exists in the formation of the right to silence,the common historical condition are the same,which includes the principle of rule of lawjudicial independence,the establishment of humanistic spirits and the lawyers'extensive participation in the criminal procedure.C.The emerhence of the right to silence is an important milestone in the history of civilization ofmankind.lt is a symbol that marks mankind has entered a civilized stage from savage.The every step of development of the right to silence represents the developing direction of the criminal procedure.The second parts discusses the tendency in value of the right to silence and analyzes the choice in value of the right to silence,and points out that between finding truth and pritecting human rights,the right to silence mainly represents the thought of human right protection in the litigation laws.The choice of human right protection is based on the theoretical presumption that human nature is vicious.Under such a presumption,in order to fulfill the pursuit for freedom of human beings,there is a need to limit the powers of officials,one of the methods of limitation is that when there are conflicts between common citizen and a nation,necessary ways to counterwork the powers of a nation should be bestowed to a common citizen.In addition,the right to silence embodies the respect for individual's freedom.This respect does not require that this freedom will bring happiness, but require that one,as a human being,should deserve reasonable dignity.