完善刑事诉讼中证人出庭制度——欧洲人权法院的判例及其启示

Improvements of the System for the Appearance of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings——the Cases of the European Court of Human Rights and Its Enlightenment

欧洲人权法院相关判例对刑事诉讼中证人出庭的案件范围、出庭的作证方式以及出庭的保障措施作出了比较详尽的规定。我国2012年《刑事诉讼法》虽然规定了强制关键证人出庭制度,但实践中一直存在的关键证人出庭率低的问题依然没有得到解决。学者们普遍认为这是由于立法将决定关键证人出庭与否的裁量权赋予了法院。而透过欧洲人权法院的判例,发现立法真正的问题在于对质权的缺失、审前证言笔录适用情形不明确、匿名作证方式不完善及强制关键证人出庭的配套措施不足。

Relevant cases of the European Court of Human Rights have made detailed provisions on the scope of cases,the way of testifying,and the safeguard measures for the appearance of witnesses in criminal proceedings.Although the Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China of 2012 stipulates the system of mandatory attendance of key witnesses,the problem of low attendance rate of key witnesses in criminal proceedings has not been solved.Scholars generally believe this is because the legislation gives the court discretion to decide whether key witnesses should appear in court or not.Through the system of the appearance of criminal witnesses in the cases of European Court of Human Rights,we find that the real problems lie in the lack of the right to pledge,the unclear application of pretrial testimony,the imperfect methods of anonymous testimony and the inadequate supporting measures to force key witnesses to appear in court.Therefore,this paper takes the cases of European Court of Human Rights as the research model,finding out the deficiency of our legislation,reasonably using the system of appearance of criminal witness in the cases of European Court of Human Rights for reference,and improving the system of appearance of witness in our criminal proceedings.