Study On Corroborative Rules Applying To The Testimony Of Minors

This article involves two questions:the testified competence of minors and the weigh of their testimonies in the criminal procedure. Minors are the future and hope for our country. There are many related legislations built to guarantee minors involving in the social activities. The article mainly discuss the topic when minor witnesses involving the criminal procedure.Based on the ambiguous and abstract provisions, there is no accordant standard of the testified competence of minors. And the lawyer of the defendants always prevents them from punishments by declaring that minor witnesses can’t testify. However, there are different attitudes towards the problems:some experts insist that the specificities of minors make it difficult for them to adapt the court, as a result, they make the conclusion that they can’t testify; some experts insist that it is not reasonable to reject minors to testify only by the arguments that they are young. In fact, there are many shortages of minors, for example, the wits、the experiences of minors are not so well as the adults, but it does not mean they can’t testify because they also can provide some leads to help the polices find useful information. To unify the criterion of the different views, it is necessary to specify the testified competence of minors.The first part of this article mainly explains the testified competence of minors. There are different standards and definition of minors in different countries. However, they passed through the same transition. That is rejecting minors to testify at first and now allowed them to testify. We must admit that there are innate defects existing in minors. And also the defects make people generally don’t believe minors no matter what they said. So the law should clearly declare that when the testimonies of minors are the only evidence to convict someone is guilty, on that condition, the judge can’t convict someone based on the testimonies of minor witnesses, other evidences are required to prove the testimonies of minors. That is the corroborative rules in the testimonies of witnesses which is the other topic of part one. The corroborative rules only exist in the testimonies and only in the circumstances that the law is explicitly stipulated. There is no doubt that defining the corroborative rules are the restraints of the absolute discretion of the judge. The reasons of defining the corroborative rules are the immanent imperfection heavily affecting the probative value, so it is necessary to find other evidences which can prove it is true or not. The corroborative evidences are firstly one kind of evidences, so they must be relevant with the definitive evidences and obtained from the legal way, beyond that they are also independent from the definitive evidences and can prove the truth of the testimonies of minors in at least one aspect.The second part of the article mainly discusses the reasons for the testimonies of minors requiring the corroborative evidences. When minors’ testimony is to be corroborated when it is the sole evidence to prove someone is guilty. The key problem is that the high probabilities for minors to be affected by the disturbances from themselves or the outside. Also the creditability of minors is also questioned by people. Above all, the "innate defects" existed in minors resulted in the corroborative rules apply in the testimony of minors.The third part of this article narrates the legislative provisions of the testified competence of minors in China. The criminal procedure law defines the testified competence of minors. But obviously there are some legal defects. For example, how to define "the young", how to judge the competence of "discriminating between right and wrong" and "express correctly". The criminal procedure law only specifically defines the corroboration to confession, besides; the judge has the absolute discretion. The testimony itself has the high probative force. However, it is very different to tell it is true or not. And there is corroboration in testimony of minors in civil and administrative procedure law, so if it also applies to the criminal procedure law, as a result, it will become the intact system.The last part of this article mostly involves the legal defects in statute about minor witnesses and some suggestions to perfect them. Firstly, we should specify the testified competence and the methods of testifying etc. Secondly, there are explicit provisions of the corroboration to testimony of minors in civil and administrative procedure law set by the Supreme People’s Court, and in the same consideration, it also should be applied in the criminal procedures.