Study On The Legislation Of The Crime Of Refusing To Testify

Witnesses can be defined in broad and narrow sense. In broad sense, witnesses referto those who give evidence to the facts related to the case in a trial court after an oath,including expert witnesses and non-expert witnesses. In narrow sense, witnesses refer to the third people making a statement in a court based on the facts they have experienced in person. Common law countries generally adopt the generalized concept of the witness,however, about the concept of witness in our country. Theory is not consistent; themainstream view is adopting narrow concept.“Criminal witness” refers to those whoknow the case and has the obligation to testify except those who fail to distinguish rightfrom wrong and express him or herself. The witness’s conduct of refusing to testify notonly exists in various countries, but more common in our country. The witness’s conductof refusing to testify not only goes against the investigation of the case truth by thejudicial authority and question from the prosecutor and the defender to the truth of thewitness’s testimony, but also does harm to the realization of justness and the authority oflaw. It is common that witness refuses to testify in criminal cases, which blocks theprocess of judicial activity and endangers our society. Therefore, the crime of thewitness’s conduct of refusing to testify should be added to our criminal law. Aftercomparing the two systems of statute law and case law to the various views in theory field,the author points out that it is operable to add the crime of refusing to testify. The crime ofrefusing to testify is the crime of inaction by its very nature. Since the witness is requiredto perform his or her obligation, the rights should be given, too. Therefore, improvedsystems like the witness protect system, witness economic compensation system, andprivilege of no-testify system should be built up to support the crime of refusing to testify.At last, the author tries to design the items and thoroughly analyze the structure of thecrime of refusing to testify.