Common Law Bail System Study

Bail in criminal action is an ancient system in Anglo-American system country. From the beginning of the naissance to now, bail as a right pertaining to accused inherent in constitutionality in Anglo-American system country. With the protection of human rights promotes gradually in the scope of'world, bail not only becomes the institutional and important foundation of proceeding system in Anglo-American system country but also were gradually adopted by the civil law country. Especially in the last near more than ten years, Anglo-American system countries have great reformation on bail system. In the author's view, if the concept of freedom is one of the fundamental criteria by which a society is judged, and the refusal of bail represents one of the rare examples in peace-time where a man can be kept in confinement without a proper sentence following conviction after a proper trail. By the 20th century, despite the strong presumption towards bail and the establishment of risk of flight as the only proper grounds for denial of bail, a form of quasi-preventive detention flourished in the Anglo-American system country.This thesis, roughly 40,000 words, besides an introduction, is divided into totally four chapters. Each of the concrete contents is as follows:It is proclaimed in the first chapter that the history of bail can be divided roughly into three stages. The author traces the origins of bail to Ancient Rome and provides an overview of the historical developments in England, the colonial America, the United States and other common law countries. Then the author think the rise of bail is a milestone of human civilization with each stage of its developments representing a step forward of the criminal justice system.Chapter two delineates minutely the basic rule concerning the bail in major common law countries. The author summarizes different rules into three categories. To sum up the basic rule of bail comprise way ofbail, the proceeding of bail and penalize when violate condition of bail. Foundation on discussion of basic rule, the author proclaimed two special basic principles of bail, Neutral Adjudicate principle andexcessive bail should not be required.Bearing in mind that bail has long been a subject of heated debate, the author tries to outline the major issues discussed in the United Kingdom and the United State. In Chapter three, the author's view is the right to bail is a legal right with theoretical basis. It originated from substantive reasons such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In modern society, it is regarded as a fundamental human right inherent in human integrity and an implicit requirement of the presumption of innocence.Chapter four is the development of bail in present common law countries. The author' view is that bail has become a limited right pertaining to accused because of preventive detention and some other limited measure.Chapter five concentrates on the future development of bail in our country. After reviewing present criminal procedure, the author realizes that Chinese law as it stands now does not include bail, and the Chinese term "qubao houshen" is slightly different from bail. Then the author analyses the defects for it adoption and how we adopt it, eventually, the author put forwards the improve of "qubao houshen" in our country.