The Information Notes In Criminal Procedure

"Information notes" explored in this paper mainly refers to written materials explained, interpreted and supplemented or corrected by organs responsible for criminal investigation about case fact issue, procedure issue, evidence issue or other relevant work in criminal lawsuit. "Information notes" has existed in criminal lawsuit activities since the 1980s; after over 30 years, it is still extensively applied now.At present, "information notes" mainly includes the following characteristics. Firstly, its forms are diversified. There is a great difference in name, content and inscriber format of "information notes", and different responsible departments or personnel will often write "information notes" according to their won habits. As a result, "information notes" involves diversified forms. Secondly, the contents are rich. It mainly covers origin of case clues, plots about surrender and contributions, additions and corrections about slight defective evidence, explanations about use of legal evidence, handling information of codefendant personnel, situations of verification failure, legality of testifying procedure, and others. Thereby, " information notes" has no explicit application range, and it can be used almost arbitrarily. Thirdly, the issuance stages are extensive. "Information notes" can be issued at any stage of criminal lawsuit. Fourthly, the admission rate is high. "Information notes" will be adopted except that it is obviously unreasonable or there is other evidence to refute it."Information notes" should belong to evidence. This paper denies the wrong concept cited by the academic circle when evidentiary property of "information notes" is discussed. Besides, it establishes the theoretical concept that "evidence" should contain two evidence forms including "evidence material" and "final proof", and verifies the viewpoint that "information notes" belongs to evidence from the two aspects of "evidence material" and "final proof".Manufacture and application of "information notes" has many drawbacks. There is a lack of explicit legal norms, it might become the converter of making illegal evidence legal, the cross-examination right of the accused party is restricted, the responsibility consciousness of investigators is weakened, and the case quality is affected. As for reasons of these drawbacks:firstly, due to the lack of explicit legal norms, "information notes" has no laws to follow, thus the situation becomes disordered and the evidence positioning is obscure. Secondly, no principle of direct verbal trial is established, and the trial mode of written review excessively relies on word materials presented in the form of characters. However, the accused party is unable to confront such word materials, thus its cross-examination right is restricted. Finally, the requirements for evidence strictness at various lawsuit stages are not unified, so supplement is always needed for the case evidence. However, investigators often depend on the procurator and judge, and they often consider that the deficient parts at investigation stage can be remedied even if their requirements are different. Therefore, their responsibility consciousness is weakened and thus the quality and efficiency of the case will be affected.This paper considers that based on the current judicial environment in China, it is still necessary for " information notes" to exist. Besides, four perfection measures are proposed. Firstly, its manufacture should be standardized. "Information notes" can be brought into the legal framework, so as to endow it with the form foundation that can be supervised. Secondly, its application range should be restricted, to prevent the situation where exclusionary rules of illegal evidence are ignored due to the abuse of "information notes". Thirdly, by endowing the defendant with the right to ask the investigator to appear in court as a witness and constructing the system in which the court can force the investigator to appear in court as a witness, basic litigious rights and human rights of the accused party like cross-examination right can be guaranteed. Finally, the investigation supervision function of procuratorial organs must be intensified and the prosecution guiding investigation mechanism should be perfected, to enhance evidence quality of investigation organs and reduce evidence loophole, In this way, the dependence on "information notes" will be reduced or eliminated gradually, and the case quality can be improved.Purport of this paper is that manufacture and application of "information notes" should guarantee the justice value of criminal lawsuit and meanwhile take the efficiency requirement into account. The principle of evidentiary adjudication must be implemented to prevent cases in which people are unjustly charged.