Research On Protection Of Rights Of Criminal Victims In China

For a long time, criminal proceedings of China have been emphasizingpunishment on criminals and focusing on protection of national rights, in which thereis lack of attention paid to rights of parties involved in legal actions. With the rise ofhuman rights campaign around the world, protection of rights of criminal suspectsand defendants in China was strengthened through Criminal Procedure Law. Manylegal systems were enacted based on protection of rights of defendants. In particular,for cases related to public prosecution, it is believed that initiating a publicprosecution against defendants by powerful organs of state power on behalf of thecountry is sufficient for punishing crimes and protecting rights of victims. Relativelyspeaking, defendants are vulnerable, for which legislation should pay more attentionto protection of rights of defendants in order to balance such relationship between thestrong and the weak. However, the independence of rights of victims which are alsounder the organs of state power is ignored in legislation, which makes victims stay atthe edge of legal protection. Victims and defendants are opposite to each other incriminal proceedings, and ignorance of rights of either of them will result in loss ofjustice provided by laws. Therefore, it is urgent to protect legal rights of victims in asubstantial way and repair the damaged legal relationship.Since the amendment to Criminal Procedure Law in1996, legislative protectionof rights of victims has been intensified in China. Status of victim as a party in legalaction has been established and a series of litigation rights, such as right to complain,right to apply for preventing any interested party from appearing in court, right toentrust agent ad litem and right to know, have been given to victims, which led to abreakthrough in protection of rights of victims. However, China has a late start in thisaspect and still has no complete system for protecting rights of interests. There is acertain gap between China’s system and advanced systems for protecting rights ofvictims in other countries. In recent years, number of vicious criminal cases has beenincreasing and thus the problem of having no effective protection of rights of victims has been becoming increasingly obvious, which caused severe social contradictionsthat threaten the building of a harmonious society. Therefore, to further complete thesystem for protecting rights of victims and to protect the legitimate rights andinterests of victims substantially are inevitable trends of development of CriminalProcedure Law, which are also objective requirements for protection of human rightsand realization of judicial justice.The author believes that researches on protection of rights of victims shouldproceed from essential features of victims, in which the actual situation of protectingrights of victims realized by the existing laws should be taken into consideration andcomparison between China’s system for protecting of rights of victims and suchsystems of developed countries should be made with the purpose of making theprotection of rights of victims more meaningful and profound. Firstly, protection ofrights of victims is concrete but not vague and general, in which rights to be protectedand methods for protection should be specified. Therefore, it is necessary to definevictims and recognize features of them in a clear way. Secondly, through analysis onessence of victims, the actual situation of protecting rights of victims can be discussedand shortcomings therein can then be found out. Thirdly, protection of rights ofvictims is a common problem around the world, and many countries have made activeattempts in this aspect and established relatively complete systems for protectingrights of victims. Although legal system and cultural background vary from countryto country, interpenetration and learning from each other are occurring in two majorgenealogies of law, and they can be used for reference in many aspects. Finally, basedon the above analysis and discussion, a feasible plan is put forward in this paper,which is made moderate and balanced to the best.In this paper, the question of how to improve and complete the protection ofrights of victims is discussed, and a series of propositions are put forward. The authorbelieves that all-round protection of substantive rights and procedural rights ofvictims can be realized based on learning from legislation of other counties onprotection of rights of victims. Firstly, various rights of victims as parties in legalactions should be specified, through which victims should not only be viewed asparties involved in legal actions, and their rights should also be realized in practice. For example, victims should be given complete right to sue and right to appeal.Meanwhile, remedy measures such as national compensation system, system ofcompensation for mental damages and legal aid should be also completed, which cancompensate for material and mental damages of victims to the largest extent.