Criminal Law of China: Interpretation and Explanation of Crimes

Author: Zhou Qihua
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-12-01
Features:
Foreword
As the new millennium approaches, China Criminal Code has been published. It is the crystallization of the author's 20 years of hard work and dedicated research in the late 20th century, and also a gift dedicated to the new century. It is hoped that readers will benefit from it. The newly revised Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, along with its supplementary decisions and amendments, stipulates more than 400 crimes, making it one of the criminal codes with the most defined offenses in the world. For each crime stipulated by the Chinese Criminal Law, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate have determined it as an independent offense through interpretations. To help readers fully understand the reasons for establishing each crime, the constitutive conditions and statutory penalties stipulated by law, the origin of the offense, how to identify and handle it, as well as the different provisions of laws in countries around the world regarding this crime, and to propose opinions on improving China's criminal legislation through comparison, the author has conducted a comprehensive interpretation and detailed study of each offense. This book interprets and examines all the offenses stipulated by the Chinese Criminal Law.
An offense is the name of a crime, and it cannot exist without the crime itself. An offense and a crime are two distinct concepts that are both connected and different. An offense is a high-level summary of the criminal description, reflecting the essential characteristics of the crime; whereas a crime is the concrete embodiment of the offense, encompassing all constitutive elements of the crime. Sometimes, an offense and a crime are used interchangeably, such as in the case of murder in intent, where the name of the offense is the same as the crime itself. At other times, an offense and a crime may not be identical, especially in different countries' criminal codes, where the same crime may be referred to by different names. For example, the offense of murder in intent stipulated in China's Criminal Law may be called "murder," "fisticuffs-related murder," or other names in the criminal codes of some countries. Therefore, if a certain law does not stipulate a specific offense, it does not necessarily mean that the crime itself is not stipulated. The crime may be included within another offense, and this book strives to indicate the various possible names that the same criminal act may be defined as.
Every crime has its own constitutive conditions. Traditional criminal constitutive theory holds that any crime is a dialectical unity of subjective conditions and objective conditions of the crime. The subjective conditions of a crime include the subject of the crime and the subjective aspect of the crime, while the objective conditions of a crime include the object of the crime and the objective aspect of the crime. Any crime must simultaneously meet the four major constitutive elements of the subject of the crime, the subjective aspect of the crime, the object of the crime, and the objective aspect of the crime. Lacking any one of these elements does not constitute a crime. This is a scientifically proven criminal constitutive theory. This book analyzes the class offenses and classified offenses stipulated in the special part of China's Criminal Law according to this theory. However, when the author analyzes each specific crime stipulated in the legal provisions, they found that the aforementioned constitutive elements are somewhat complex and repetitive, especially the analysis of the object of the crime is often abstract and lacks legal basis, leading to frequent disagreements. When analyzing the constitutive elements of each specific crime according to the legal provisions, it is found that any crime, as stipulated by law, is what person, what act, what result, what crime, and what penalty it constitutes. That is to say, each specific crime must simultaneously meet the three major constitutive elements of the subject of the crime, the act of the crime, and the result of the crime, known as the three constitutive elements of the crime. If these three major constitutive elements are met, it constitutes a crime; if any one of them is lacking, it does not constitute a crime. This method of analyzing the constitutive elements of each specific crime according to the legal provisions can be called simplified criminal constitutive analysis. When analyzing the constitutive elements of each specific crime stipulated by law according to simplified criminal constitutive analysis, it is more convenient and straightforward, and the constitutive elements of the crime are clear and understandable. The prominent effect of simplified criminal constitutive analysis is: (1) It is conducive to clarifying the boundary between crime and non-crime. The legal provisions explicitly stipulate the three major necessary elements of the subject, act, and result of the crime. If these legal provisions are met, it constitutes a crime; if any one of these three major necessary elements is lacking, it does not constitute a crime. There is no need to analyze the constitutive element of the object of the crime from the meaning of the legal provisions anymore; nor is there a need to artificially separate and classify the unified elements of the crime into subjective and objective aspects, as the boundary between crime and non-crime can be directly determined based on the legal provisions. (2) It is conducive to distinguishing between different crimes. When analyzing some easily confused crimes according to simplified criminal constitutive analysis, as long as one or two of the three major constitutive elements of the crime are found to be different, the easily confused crimes can be distinguished without needing to distinguish all the constitutive elements of the crime. (3) It is conducive to improving criminal legislation. If the legislative body analyzes the legal provisions and finds that one of the three constitutive elements of a crime stipulated by law has shortcomings, as long as the shortcomings are amended and improved, the legal provisions can be made perfect to meet the needs of punishing certain crimes at that time.
This book analyzes the three major necessary conditions of each specific crime's constitutive elements according to the requirements of simplified criminal constitutive analysis, making each constitutive condition of the crime clear, understandable, and easy to grasp, demonstrating the applicable effect of simplified criminal constitutive analysis.
During the writing process of this book, it was based on the 1997 revised Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and its supplementary decisions, amendments, and interpretations by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. It also referenced China's 1979 Criminal Law and related supplementary provisions, drew on ancient Chinese laws such as the Nine Chapters of the Law, Tang Code, Ming Code, Qing Code, the 1935 Criminal Code of the Republic of China, and criminal codes of countries such as the Russian Federation, Romania, Japan, Thailand, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Canada, and others. Due to the limited versions available, if there are any errors, corrections are welcome.
Author
November 2000, Beijing