Construction Of The Relatives’ Right Of Refusing To Testify In Criminal Proceedings

The relatives’ right of refusing to testify is a significant component of the testimony immunity of witness system, which stipulates the witness who is related to defendants or criminal suspects enjoys the rights of refusing to testify. In fact, China’s current criminal procedure law has yet been made specific provisions of this kind of right. Therefore, this thesis is about expounding the issue of the lack of the relatives’ right of refusing to testify in China’s criminal proceedings as well as the reason for this situation through a comparative analysis of foreign relatives’ rights of refusing to testify system and ancient China’s kin Concealment system. Ultimately, based on China’s traditions and current national conditions, I puts forward some suggestions for the establishment of this right in criminal procedure proceedings.This question will be discussed mainly from the following aspects:Firstly, a rational analysis of relatives’ right of refusing to testify from the perspective of jurisprudence, especially the concept and feature, has been made in this thesis. Furthermore, I summarize the shortcomings caused by the lack of this right in criminal procedure proceedings, and explore the reason for this situation. Actually, China’s current criminal procedure law puts emphasis more on obligations of citizens, and the public consider kin concealment system as feudalism and reject it blindly, both of which lead to the inadequate of rights system in criminal procedure law. Therefore, the construction of the relatives’ right of refusing to testify in criminal proceedings not only is necessary, but also has significant practical significance.Secondly, I discusses and analyses the positive effect and reference meanings of the relatives’ right of refusing to testify in other country and some areas of our country such as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. In the meantime, the realistic significance of ancient China’s kin concealment system is pointed out as well.Thirdly, to ensure smooth implementation of the rights system, some conceptions are proposed. Fundamentally, we must standardize some legal concepts, such as the subject of rights, scope of application, procedure of right exercises, right relief and so on, which will be explained in details in the last chapter.