The Underlying Reasons of Hardly Excluding Illegally Obtained Evidence in China

Although Chinese exclusionary rule reform made significant progress in technology, China does not fundamentally change the operating environment of exclusionary rule. With respect to the function of criminal court hearing, it is difficult for us to find ample scope for the exclusionary rule. On the one hand, the particular mutual coordination among investigators, procuratorates and courts in China, and the criminal procedure structure centered on the pretrial procedure basically determine that it is difficult for the defense party to completely overthrow the procuratorate's prosecution through applying for excluding illegally obtained evidence. Even if the defense party can occasionally impel the court to exclude illegally obtained evidence by forceful evidence, the defendant fails to change the result of being convicted. On the other hand, in the case of a formalistic court investigation and the phase separation between hearing and adjudicating, coupled with excessive emphasis on the truth of a case fact, the exclusionary rule with the high expectations of the whole society still exists in name only as before.