From Chinese Press

A welcome judicial move

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-02 07:48

Two new regulations issued jointly by the supreme court, the top procuratorate and the ministry of public security say that evidence obtained illegally, such as through torture during interrogation, cannot be used as testimony, particularly in cases that could lead to capital punishment, says an article in Changjiang Daily. Excerpts:

The law prohibits the use of torture to extract a confession out of a suspect. But in reality, law enforcement officers do torture suspects to extract confessions. Sometimes even innocents own up to a crime to escape torture. Such wrong convictions have not only made innocents pay a heavy price, but also damaged people's trust in the judicial system.

Evidence is crucial for trials. The way evidence is obtained forms an important part of a judicial system. Extracting confessions by torturing a suspect, or forcing somebody into testifying wrongly is a kind of crime. Moreover, compared with an individual's crime, the institutionalized wrongdoings and undue exercise of power by law enforcement officers is a bigger concern.

Judicial independence has to be maintained to prevent the use of torture to force a confession out of somebody, because that could result in unjust, false or wrong sentencing of people.

 

(China Daily 06/02/2010 page9)