The law requires criminal suspects and defendants to "answer truthfully", which only shows that our law does not recognize the right to silence and does not encourage criminal suspects and defendants to be silent, but expects criminal suspects and defendants to truthfully state the case, so as to quickly find out the truth of the case, so that innocent criminal suspects and defendants can be exempted from litigation in time, and guilty criminal suspects and defendants can be treated leniently because of their confession. However, whether the criminal suspect or the defendant answers or not, whether he answers truthfully or not, it shall not be forced, nor shall it be used as an excuse for extorting a confession by torture, nor shall it be used as a basis for finding him guilty. This is because, in our country, it is forbidden to extort confessions by torture and collect evidence by threats, enticements, deception and other illegal means, and confessions of criminal suspects and defendants obtained by extorting confessions by torture and other illegal means shall not be used as evidence. Forcing the interrogated person to confess, which constitutes a crime, shall be investigated for criminal responsibility in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law. The law strictly prohibits any act of forcing the interrogated person to confess against his will; At the same time, if the defendant is found guilty, the evidence must be true and sufficient. Criminal suspects and defendants enjoy the right to defense according to law, and it is the responsibility of investigation organs and procuratorial organs to make accusations. Therefore, the accused criminal suspect and defendant shall not be forced to bear the burden of proof and proof.
In our country, there are different understandings in academic circles about the stipulation of "should answer truthfully" and whether criminal suspects and defendants should be given the right of silence. One view is that criminal suspects and defendants should truthfully answer the questions of investigators, and the law should not explicitly give them the right to remain silent.
The main reason is: 1. Asking for an honest answer is of positive significance for punishing crimes and safeguarding human rights. For those who are guilty, ordering them to truthfully confess their crimes is conducive to finding out the case in time and accurately, and also helps to identify their guilty attitude for reference when sentencing; For the innocent, asking him to actively cooperate with specialized agencies will help to quickly find out the truth of the case, get rid of the lawsuit as soon as possible, and help to find the real criminal. 2. Asking for an honest answer is in line with its position in criminal proceedings. The statements of criminal suspects and defendants are the most important sources of evidence. They can neither be regarded as the "king of evidence" nor go to the other extreme, ignoring their unique evidence value. Give it the right to remain silent. It should be noted that it is very important for investigators, prosecutors and judges to collect and verify evidence, thus forming a correct identification. The law requires criminal suspects and defendants to bear the obligation of truthful statements, which is conducive to the rapid cracking of cases and the smooth progress of criminal proceedings. 3, the law stipulates that criminal suspects and defendants should answer truthfully, which is conducive to the implementation of the criminal policy of differential treatment. At present, China's crime rate is rising, violent crime, organized crime and intelligent crime are rampant, and the social security situation is becoming increasingly severe. However, the investigation technology and equipment owned by local investigation organs are generally backward. In this case, it is also in line with the actual national conditions to stipulate that criminal suspects should truthfully state.
Another view is that the above analysis can only be established in theory. In fact, the obligation to give honest answers to criminal suspects and defendants does not help to improve the detection rate and conviction rate in normal procedures. There is a simple reason. For criminal suspects and defendants, there are generally two attitudes towards confession retraction. First, voluntary and truthful statements; The second is not to confess. For the former, in the normal procedure of excluding illegal means such as legal presumption and extorting confessions by torture, it is of course beneficial to solve the case if the criminal suspect and defendant voluntarily answer truthfully. But in this case, the same effect will be produced in the criminal procedure that gives him the right to silence, because giving him the right to silence does not prevent him from voluntarily confessing truthfully. Therefore, in the case that the criminal suspect and the defendant voluntarily make truthful statements, the procedure of truthfully answering the obligation has no advantage in solving the case by using voluntary truthful statements compared with the procedure of giving the right to silence; For the latter, even if the criminal suspect and defendant are unwilling to answer and are silent, they cannot be found guilty because of their silence, except in the case of legal presumption. On the other hand, the right to silence does not prevent the establishment of presumption under special circumstances. Therefore, when the suspects and defendants are unwilling to make statements and are silent, the procedure of truthfully answering is not more advantageous than the procedure of giving the right to silence in improving the settlement rate and conviction rate.
Moreover, giving criminal suspects and defendants the obligation to answer truthfully will also produce many disadvantages, lose many interests, cause theoretical contradictions and lead to violations of legal procedures in practice. First of all, from the perspective of judicial practice, this provision has actually become the legal basis for criminal suspects and defendants to bear the burden of proof. If the suspect refuses to answer questions, the investigator thinks that he is dishonest and noisy, and will make all kinds of unfavorable speculations about the suspect, and will use various methods to make him answer according to his own wishes. This is actually to let the criminal suspect bear the burden of proof, that is, if the criminal suspect can't produce evidence that is beneficial to him, he is at a disadvantage; Secondly, the law requires the criminal suspect to answer the questions of investigators truthfully, which easily makes the judicial rule personnel form the idea that interrogating the criminal suspect or defendant is the main means of obtaining evidence or obtaining evidence clues or finding guilty, and makes them pay attention to confession rather than collecting other evidence through improving technical methods, which will inevitably lead to the use of illegal means of obtaining evidence such as extorting confessions by torture, extorting confessions by torture and fatigue tactics. This will not only undermine the legitimacy of the procedure, but also hinder the discovery of truth. Because the superstition of the confession of criminal suspects and defendants, like profiteering stimulating greed, will stimulate the desire of investigators to obtain confessions; This desire will prompt him to get a confession by any means. In the criminal proceedings of extorting a confession by torture or extorting a confession by torture in disguise, "any difference between criminals and innocent people is eliminated by the same way of trying to find out the difference", because "this way can ensure that powerful criminals are released and weak innocent people are convicted and punished". If we rely too much on confessions, we will inevitably use torture and disguised torture as a means to obtain such confessions. Asking the criminal suspect to answer the investigators' questions truthfully shows that criminal proceedings pay too much attention to confessions, which runs counter to the legitimate idea of pinning the hope of detecting cases on hard and in-depth investigation and research and improving technical means.
In view of the above, it is inappropriate to take the criminal suspect and defendant as the general principle of criminal procedure in China. On the contrary, China's criminal procedure law should further implement the spirit of the principle that no one should be forced to testify against himself, and make it clear that investigators, prosecutors and judges should not force a criminal suspect or defendant to confess guilt in any way, nor should they draw a guilty conclusion because they do not answer questions. This is the need to prevent illegal investigation, maintain judicial purity, improve the level of handling cases, reduce unjust, false and misjudged cases, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, and safeguard the interests of long-term social stability.
[(Author: People's Court of Poyang County, Jiangxi Province) Source: China Court Network]