Comparative Study on Business Negligence Crimes

Author: Liu Zhiwei, edited by Nie Lizhe
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: The implementation of market economy policies in China has greatly activated the potential of various industries and promoted the rapid development of the economy. However, on the other hand, it has also led to some negative consequences. One severe negative consequence is the significant increase in negligent crimes, which have caused substantial losses to people's lives and property and hindered the development of relevant industries. Serious negligent crimes, such as traffic accidents and corporate safety accidents, pose a significant threat to public safety, causing immense losses to lives and property. Medical accidents and blood product incidents, which endanger public health, have repeatedly occurred, severely threatening people's lives and health while damaging the reputation of medical institutions. Negligent crimes such as environmental monitoring malpractice, failure to prevent infectious diseases, and commodity inspection malpractice not only endanger public safety but also lower the reputation of relevant national agencies. How to curb and effectively punish negligent crimes, reducing the losses they cause to the state and people's lives and property, has become an urgent issue that needs to be addressed and an unavoidable problem in the future development of a healthy market economy. Empirical investigations show that the poor application or insufficient use of criminal law measures is a major reason for the frequent occurrence and severe social harm of negligent crimes in recent years. Therefore, conducting in-depth research on negligent crimes and exploring how to use criminal law measures accurately and effectively to punish, curb, and prevent negligent crimes under market economy conditions is of great practical significance. It is undeniable that foreign research on negligent crimes started earlier, with not only rich legislative and judicial experience but also significant theoretical achievements, such as the theories of "permissible risk" and "trust principle," which have become quite mature and are widely used in countries to handle negligent crimes like traffic accidents and corporate safety accidents. From the provisions on negligent crimes in the criminal codes of major countries today, most contain both general negligent crimes and professional negligent crimes. The reason for separating professional negligent crimes from general negligent crimes and stipulating them separately is mainly that: in the context of increasingly refined social division of labor and the growing specialization of various industries, many harmful consequences that ordinary citizens neither have the ability nor need to foresee can be foreseen by those engaged in specific professional activities. For these professionals, the law must impose specialized attention obligations related to their work. If they fail to fulfill or acknowledge their fulfillment of these obligations, resulting in serious harmful consequences, they should bear corresponding criminal liability and receive criminal punishment. The rationale is: (1) Since these professionals specialize in certain areas, they are very clear about which links in their work may lead to what harmful consequences and how to avoid and eliminate them, giving them the full ability to foresee and prevent such consequences. (2) If these professionals do not take effective measures to prevent harmful consequences that may arise from their work, the occurrence of such consequences can often lead to catastrophic consequences for society. (3) Therefore, those engaged in these professional activities have the obligation to foresee and prevent such harmful consequences. Since these professionals have both the obligation and the ability to prevent harmful consequences but fail to do so, they should bear corresponding responsibility, including criminal liability. In this way, criminalizing certain professional negligent acts becomes a reasonable and necessary choice. Second, although both ordinary citizens and professionals can foresee certain harmful consequences, their ability to do so differs significantly. Professionals engaged in specialized activities may have a much stronger ability to foresee these consequences than ordinary citizens, and the harmful consequences caused by negligence in professional activities may be far more serious than in ordinary circumstances. (3) Accordingly, the criminal liability and penalties that relevant professionals should bear should be heavier than those of ordinary citizens. In such cases, it is also necessary to stipulate these negligent crimes separately to set different statutory penalties from general negligent crimes, thereby increasing the criminal liability of these professionals and reflecting the principle of proportionality between crime, liability, and punishment. Foreign criminal law theories have conducted relatively in-depth discussions on the various factors affecting the conviction and sentencing of professional negligent crimes. In contrast, research on professional negligent crimes in China's criminal law theory remains in its early stages, with only a few specialized papers and no monographs, and studies on individual crimes are still in a preliminary phase. Although many criminal law researchers have paid more attention to negligent crimes (or criminal negligence) in recent years and achieved a certain number of high-quality research results, very few have conducted specialized research on professional negligent crimes, leading to a lack of comprehensive consideration in the study of specific professional negligent crimes. This has resulted in inconsistent approaches, solutions, and standards for addressing similar issues, making it difficult to fulfill the function of scientific guidance for judicial practice by criminal law theory. Given the increasing number and growing severity of professional negligent crimes at present, such theoretical research clearly cannot meet the needs of judicial practice. Therefore, conducting systematic comparative research on professional negligent crimes undoubtedly has high theoretical value and is of great significance for enriching and deepening China's criminal law theory research and promoting the improvement of legislation on professional negligent crimes.