On The Examination And Judgment Of The Authenticity Of The Testimony Of Criminal Witnesses In China

Witness testimony is like the ears and eyes of a judicial trial,playing an important,even crucial,role in finding out the truth and determining the facts of a case.However,Chinese criminal wrongdoings show that there are few wrongful cases caused by errors in the examination and judgment of the authenticity of witness testimonies.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct further research on the review and judgment of the authenticity of criminal witness testimony in China.The criminal witness testimony refers to the statements made by people other than the parties concerned who know about the case to the judicial authorities,case officers and so on.Witness testimony is subjective,fallible and other characteristics,these characteristics lead to its greater risk of distortion.Criminal witness testimony authenticity review judgment content includes the credibility of the witness and the credibility of the testimony of two aspects.Although foreign and China’s criminal witness testimony authenticity of the review and judgment model is different,but whether it is foreign free evidence model or China’s "new statutory evidence" model,in the review and judgment process are subject to the procedural rules of the constraints.Through the comparison of domestic and foreign criminal witness testimony authenticity review and judgment system,we can find that China’s criminal witness testimony authenticity review and judgment system in the lack of hearsay rules,contradictory witness testimony rules,cross-examination rules lack of operability and other problems.At the same time,through the practical investigation of 101 samples,it is found that the review and judgment of the authenticity of criminal witness testimony in China has inconsistent hearsay testimony,the"powerlessness" of the witness appearance rule,the fictionalization of the cross-examination rule,the inappropriate and single way of examining testimony,and the"lost words" of the adjudication reasoning rule in practice "These problems have,to some extent,led to a tendency for the court to find hearsay testimony inconsistent.These problems in a way easily lead to criminal witness testimony authenticity determination error,and even into a wrongful case.For criminal witness testimony authenticity review and judgment in the problem,should be improved from the following aspects: in the review and judgment system,the establishment of limited hearsay rules,sound witness testimony rules,improve the rules of cross-examination,strengthen the rules of adjudication reasoning;in the review and judgment method,reasonable use of contradiction analysis,statement validity assessment method,false memory identification method.