Comparative Study on Business Negligence Crimes (Volume 2)

Author: Liu Zhiwei
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 national 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 that endanger public safety, such as traffic accidents and corporate safety liability incidents, have occurred frequently, causing immense losses to lives and property. Medical accidents, blood product incidents, and other negligent crimes that harm public health have also continued to occur, severely endangering people's lives and health while damaging the reputation of medical and health departments. Negligent crimes such as environmental supervision negligence, infectious disease prevention negligence, and commercial inspection negligence 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 significant reason for the frequent occurrence of negligent crimes in recent years and their severe impact on society. 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 applied in countries to handle negligent crimes like traffic accidents and corporate safety liability incidents. 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 industries, many harmful consequences that ordinary citizens neither have the ability nor need to foresee may be foreseeable for 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 the fulfillment of these obligations, resulting in serious harmful consequences, they should bear corresponding criminal responsibilities and receive criminal penalties. The rationale is: (1) Since these professionals specialize in certain areas, they are well aware of which of their work may lead to what harmful consequences and how to avoid or eliminate them, giving them the full ability to foresee and prevent such consequences. (2) If these professionals fail to take effective measures to prevent harmful consequences that may arise from their work, the occurrence of such consequences would often bring catastrophic consequences to 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 responsibilities, including criminal liability, once their actions result in harmful consequences. In this case, criminalizing certain professional negligent acts becomes a reasonable and necessary choice. Second, while 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 severe than in ordinary circumstances. (3) Accordingly, the criminal liability and penalties that 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 enhancing 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 influencing 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 yet available. Research on individual crimes is also still in its infancy. 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, few have conducted specialized research on professional negligent crimes. As a result, research on specific professional negligent crimes lacks comprehensive consideration, leading to inconsistent approaches, solutions, and standards for addressing similar issues. This makes it difficult to fulfill the function of scientifically guiding judicial practice with criminal law theory. Given the increasing number and growing severity of professional negligent crimes, 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.