Card Power System Refused A Comparative Study

Nowadays Chinese law circle are demonstrating and drafting the evidence law with the right of witness exemption as one of the hotspots. The right of witness exemption for some witnesses means the right that witness could refuse to give testimony in statutory cases of relatives, risk of self-crimination, professional secret and public interest. As an important evidence rule, the right of witness exemption is stated in the evidence law or procedure law in most countries. The author compares the rules on right of witness in those countries' evidence laws and international conventions and presents that offering some witnesses the right of witness exemption is popular among rule-by-law countries, either statutory law or common law. The theoretical basis for the right of witness exemption is stated as right of speech freedom, rational choice to conflicting values, protection to the ethics and suspicion to the evidence. But the most common basis is the rational choice to the conflicting values, in other words, we should choose to protect some special values instead of ascertaining the truth in some cases. Furthermore, most countries do deem that the establishment of right of witness exemption is helpful to protecting human rights, preserving family harmony and promoting social progress. Influenced by the unilateral judicial conception of ascertaining the truth, our country has not established the right of witness exemption in the procedure laws. Though the judicial interest is protected, it is very unfavorable to the right of the witness and those social values. With regards to the historical tradition of relative disguise and the real needs for the development of lawyers and doctors, the author deem that it is necessary and feasible to establish the right of witness exemption in our country, he also raises specific designation.