Witness Protection In Criminal Proceedings

The testimony of witness is crucial to criminal procedure. Under some extreme circumstance testimony is the determinate factor in criminating the defendant. However there are no effective protections provided to the witness due to absence of relatively perfect legal system in our country. The witnesses have scruples about whether to testify under this circumstance. Because of the absence hereof and other factors such as tradition of litigation averseness there is very few appearance of witness in trial court. It is urgent and justified to establish a well-devised and effective witness protecting system. In this essay I try to propose witness protecting system with Chinese character and suitable to our country's reality by combining the investigation of witness protecting mechanism out of the territory with examination of the status quo in domestic.There are four parts except introduction and concluding remarks in this dissertation. The first part is the summarization of witness protection in criminal procedure. Part two elaborates on legislation, practice, subject in matter, protection organs, measures and procedures of witness protection system abroad from the view of positivism. The third part conveys a detailed analysis on current situation of witness protection in our country. In the fourth part elaborates on how to perfect witness protection legal system which is suitable to the current situation of our country by clarifying scope, subject in matter, protection organs, procedures of the system hereof and establishment of witness privilege.