Criminal Witnesses Eligible For Study

Witness is important to criminal procedures in lawsuit. In our country, the testimony of witness is one of the seven evidences of criminal procedure, and it plays a very important role in identifying and judging the facts of the case. But as a witness, he must be qualified with enough competence, then the evidential effect can be achieved. The main purpose of stipulating witness'qualification in the specific law is just to ensure the truth and validity of witness testimony to its maximum degree. Accordingly, studies on witness'qualification are of great important both theoretically and practically. Through the Civil Law Systems and Common Law Systems different countries witness' qualifications comparison research. This article mainly is intended to find out all possible influential factors from the criminal prosecution witness's angle, and meanwhile, examine the currently existing defects on this respect in the related laws or regulations and propose further consummates our country witness'qualifications system the suggestion.The. article composes of three chapters. The first chapter is to discuss the witness'understanding. The author thinks that the conception of witness can be interpreted both in broad sense and narrow sense. In Common Law Systems, the concept of the witness covers parties and expert witness. In Civil Law Systems it only refers to the third party except for main body of action, not including the parties and expert. And in our country we understand it in its narrow sense. And mainly introduces the universal definition and its recognized principle about the two big legal systems witness'qualification comparison. Finally, introduces the limitation about the witness'qualification in our country. The second chapter mainly analyzes the concrete factors to affect the witness'qualification, and emphatically elaborated the problem of several kinds of special witnesses'qualification which the legal science has a greater dispute at present. The factors include the natural factors and social factors. The former refers to function of witness, the age, intellect, psychological condition. The latter refers to interested relationship, professional relationship, individual faith and fidelity, etc. The third chapter analyzes the defects in the witness' qualification systems in our country and proposes consummated suggestion to the witness' qualification.