On the Criminal Rights

Abstract

There are two bases underlining the criminal rights: (1) the rights derived from the human rights (2) the rights bestowed to criminals in accordance to the ultimate goal of legal punishment. Although the aims of exercising legal punishment and granting the rights are different, and mutually undermining and restrictive, they both originate from the social expectations, and constitute a paradox of contradiction and integration. The criminal rights can take three forms, i.e. the rights needed, legalized and realized. The development of the rights is no other than the evolution from the needed to the realized along a particular course.