Interrogator shall bear criminal liability for collecting confession by threat

The Supreme Court held a meeting yesterday in which an important resolution was made towards such act as “collecting confession in an illegal manner”.  According to the resolution, if defendants allege that they confess themselves to be guilty after being pressed and also present proof to demonstrate that their confessions are not given out of their free will, the court should launch a probe into this prior to other evidence to be investigated and shall not dismiss the petition for such probe if there is only the interrogators’ unilateral statement.  If defendants’ confessions are put forward by prosecutors, the court should order the prosecutors to bear the burden of proof as to whether the defendants’ confessions were given out of their free will.

Such resolution brings some specific binding effect on the courts of first and second instance.  Therefore, it is believed to be a significant improvement on the goal of protecting human rights judicially.