Evidence Investigation and Application in Capital Cases

Author: Li Wenyan, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-03-01
Features: Fairness and justice are one of the goals that human society has pursued for thousands of years, and law is an important carrier of this pursuit. As a set of rules for regulating and standardizing people's behavior in social life, law should adhere to the principles of fairness and justice. The fairness and justice of law, apart from being rooted in the fairness and justice of legislation, are more perceived by ordinary people in the process of law enforcement. The latter includes two aspects: fair and just law enforcement and fair and just justice. The fairness and justice of the legal system itself do not naturally translate into fairness and justice in law enforcement. Without fairness and justice in law enforcement and justice, even the most fair and just laws can only remain on paper, remaining nothing more than a beautiful ideal that is difficult to realize in practice. The fairness and justice in the process of law enforcement can be divided into substantive fairness and justice and procedural fairness and justice. Substantive fairness and justice require that the decisions or outcomes made by judicial personnel regarding the substantive rights and obligations of the parties involved are fair and just. Procedural fairness and justice, on the other hand, require that the process of judicial activities is fair and just to the relevant parties. Without procedural fairness and justice, it is extremely difficult to achieve ultimate substantive fairness and justice. One of the basic requirements of procedural fairness and justice is to adhere to the fundamental rules of emphasizing facts and evidence, firmly opposing illegal evidence collection, and opposing and prohibiting law enforcement and judicial personnel from torturing suspects to extract confessions. Practice has proven that illegal evidence collection and torture are the main reasons for false and erroneous cases. Although some may argue, "without severe punishment, how can one obtain a real confession," the false evidence produced under the threat of severe punishment, where confessions are coerced, is clearly a major reason for work errors.