A STUDY ON THE TEXT AND RATIFICATION OF INTERNATIONAL COVENANTS ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

《公民及政治權利國際公約》本文解析和批准問題研究

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) is one of the most important human rights treaties adopted by the United Nations. It has been found that there are three different Chinese version is the original Chinese text adopted by the General Assembly of United Nations(UN) in 1966. The second version, from 2002, is the revised Chinese text by the Chinese Government, with Depositary Notification from the UN. The third version is the simplified Chinese text widely used in Chinese mainland. The authors have found that the legal status of the simplified Chinese text is still uncertain because no formal confirmation of the text by the United Nations, the relevant authority, has been found so far. This paper examines which version should prevail in the event of any divergence among these Chinese texts and which version should be considered authentic. The authors point out various errors in the simplified Chinese text. Such as the title of the Covenant, equality between men and women, death penalty, crucial punishment, parole, arrest, detention, cross-examination etc. and explore the issue of ratification of the Covenant, inter alia: the conditions and reservations China has with ratifying the Covenant. Finally, this paper illustrates the progress China has achieved in judicial reform and describes the development in the field of human rights protection, especially in criminal justice. By analyzing the matters that China may take into consideration in the process of ratification, the authors suggest that China ratify the Covenant as soon as possible and modify its domestic laws incrementally according to China’s Constitution. The Covenant should be ratified for the purpose of further promoting judicial reform, and guaranteeing the “human rights protection clauses” in China’s Constitution and laws.《公民及政治權利國際公約》是聯合國通過得最重要的人權條約之一。該《公約》存在三個不同的中文本：1966年聯合國大會通過的原始文本（稱為《公民及政治權利國際盟約》），2002年聯合國根據中國政府的要求修改的中文本（稱為《公民及政治權利國際公約》），還有現在通行中文本（稱為《公民權利及政治權利國際公約》）。筆者發現通行的中文本內容與原始文本有重大變化，其來源和法律依據均不明確，有從英文本翻譯而成的痕跡，而且存在若干翻譯錯誤。本文通過對該《公約》中文本和外文本的研究，辨析了現在通行的中文本中的各種問題，包括：名稱、男女平等、死刑、酷刑、假釋、逮捕、法庭交叉詢問等有關條款中存在的錯誤，指出了這些條款的真實含意。文章還提出了確定《公約》作准中文本的途徑和方法，並探討了《公約》的批准時間和相關條款的保留問題。最後，本文還闡述了中國司法改革所取得的成果，認為中國的人權保障，特別是在刑事司法領域中的人權保障，已經取得了巨大進步，分析了中國在準備批准《公約》過程中需要注意的事項，建議中國盡快批准該《公約》，並可以在批准《公約》之後，根據中國《憲法》和《公約》的有關規定逐步完善國內法，以便進一步促進司法改革，落實中國《憲法》和法律中＂尊重和保障人權＂的條款。