| Criminal jurisprudence serves as a significant part of the legal system.Thus,the pursuit of systematicness has become an inevitable proposition in the research of criminal jurisprudence.From the perspective of system theory,the criminal law exists as a system,and its systematic evolution constitutes a circular process of change-selection-stability in the interaction between external environment and internal structure.This evolution process is bound to be influenced by other social systems(such as culture,morality,ethics,etc.)and other subsystems within the legal system(like constitution and other departmental laws).It is an inevitable proposition for the research and practice of criminal law to straighten out the relationship between criminal law system,social system and other subsystems within the legal system.The definition of the category of the criminal law system should be based on the hierarchy theory,which can be clarified at four levels: inside the criminal law provisions,within the criminal law,the criminal law and other departmental laws,and the criminal law and the constitution.The criminal law system holds the characteristics of independence,structure and openness shared by the legal system,and also shares such unique characteristics of the criminal law system as restraint,postposition and purpose.Some problems arose in our criminal law system in the past legislative and judicial practice,such as uncoordinated legal relations with other departments and uncoordinated internal relations in the criminal law norms,and systematic interpretation proves an effective way to solve such problems and realize the systematization of criminal law.There are many theoretical definitions on the category of the systematic interpretation of criminal law,and it is held in this paper that the systematic interpretation of criminal law serves as a method with the general goal and path of pursuing the coordination among various norms within criminal law and between criminal law and other laws.The factors considered include not only the external logical system relationship but also the internal value system relationship,of which,the former embodies the coordination between criminal law and constitution,other departmental laws,general provisions and specific provisions of criminal law,and provisions of criminal law,etc.,and the latter indicates that criminal law should safeguard social order on the premise of protecting the human rights,the purpose of criminal law should not be limited to punishment only,and the criminal law should stick to its passivity and ultimate security.The application of systematic interpretation is expected to achieve four goals: firstly,the stability of criminal law,that is,the criminal law scarcely need to respond to social changes in a frequently revised way;secondly,the coordination of criminal law,that is,the criminal law has dual coordination in logic and value in the whole legal system;thirdly,the rationality of criminal law,namely,the conclusion applicable to the criminal law conforms to the requirements of legal norms as well as the general social ethics and the values generally accepted by the public,and fourthly,the purposiveness of criminal law,that is,the conclusion of criminal law application conforms to the normative purpose for the formulation of criminal law.Meanwhile,the system interpretation is inextricably linked to other categories of criminal law,contributing to the realization of the essence of the principle of legally prescribed punishment for a crime and the realization of the value of criminal law.In practice,the exploration of the legislative purpose of criminal law and the functional expression of criminal policies should not be separated from the assistance of systematic interpretation.Compared with other interpretation methods,systematic interpretation shares the integrative function.Systematic interpretation should be constructed on the basis of its integration function,which reflects the following aspects: Firstly,the literal interpretation needs the systematic interpretation as a foreshadowing,and strict literal interpretation often neglects the systematic requirements of criminal law,resulting in the malpractice of mechanically adapting to the law.However,systematic consideration must be introduced into the extensive interpretation and condensive interpretation in literal interpretation,so literal interpretation must be based on systematic interpretation.Secondly,the discovery of normative purpose in purpose interpretation needs the assistance of systematic interpretation as well,and the important consideration factor in judging normative purpose constitutes the legal interests protected by norms,and exploring the legal interests protected by norms cannot be separated from the chapter relationship where the provision is located.Obviously,the exploration of normative purpose in this situation has been performed by the systematic interpretation method.Thirdly,historical interpretation is prone to fall into the quagmire of rigidity and untimeliness,and in view of the subjectivity of legislators' intentions,the interpreter is prone to the subjective tendency.All these drawbacks should be bridged by systematic interpretation.Fourthly,the constitutional interpretation is included in the systematic interpretation.The absolute restriction of the constitution on the criminal law and the criminal law stipulates that the basic rights of the constitution shall not be violated,which shows the problem that the systematic interpretation needs to face and solve.Therefore,systematic interpretation has the function of integrating other interpretation methods,and its position in each interpretation method is self-evident.On this basis,this paper introspects the theory of the order of criminal law interpretation.First of all,the absolute priority of literal interpretation should be questioned.The stability of law emphasized by literal interpretation is one of the values pursued by criminal law,but by no means the only or primary value.The appropriateness and justice of the application of criminal law and the stability of criminal law norms are not absolutely opposite.At the same time,literal interpretation can hardly play its role at the edge of the concept.Secondly,all kinds of interpretation methods serve the rationality of interpretation conclusion which is to some extent suitable and needs to be mutually verified by different interpretation methods.There should be no distinction between priority and inferiority in various interpretation methods,except for the size of applicable fields and the difference in applicable situations.In conclusion,the construction of systematic interpretation should take the dual system coordination in logic and value as the general goal and start with the dimensions of acknowledging the relativity of criminal terms,correcting the lag of historical interpretation,expanding the purpose of limiting norms and realizing the absolute restriction of constitution.The first level of systematic interpretation lies between "other laws" and criminal law,including the absolute restriction relationship of the constitution over the criminal law and the relative restriction relationship of the pre-law over the criminal law.The absolute restriction relationship of the constitution over the criminal law can be solved by the method of constitutional interpretation.Constitutionality interpretation is necessary.It is the requirement of established legal norms and reasonable regulation of criminal policies as well as the requirements of general standard for the interpretation to criminal law.The basic orientation of constitutionality interpretation constitutes the conflict of basic rights in the field of criminal law and should be solved through the dual dimensions of constitutional interpretation at the normative level and constitutional interpretation at the value level.The former includes that the criminal law norms shall not exceed the constitutional norms,and the criminal law norms must conform to the provisions of legal reservations in the Legislative Law;while the latter includes that the criminal law should have ethical legitimacy and must conform to the principle of proportionality.With regard to the relative restrictive relationship between criminal law and pre-law,it should be made clear that the relationship between criminal law and pre-law proves both restrictive and independent.In fact,the monism and pluralism of criminal violation have gone to two opposite extremes which are equally undesirable.In contrast,the theory of relativity of criminal illegality not only considers the unity of legal order,but also embodies the characteristics of criminal law as the last safeguard law.The qualitative difference theory should be adopted to confirm the relative relationship in the relativity of criminal violations,namely,the difference between criminal violations and administrative violations is not the difference in the amount of violations,but the qualitative difference in the selection of standard purposes and values.The interpretation of blank crimes should on this basis adhere to the following rules: firstly,we should make substantive judgments on intentional elements;secondly,we should affirm the guilty function of wrong understanding of illegality,and thirdly,we should prevent excessive abstract danger of infringement of legal interests.The second level of systematic interpretation constitutes the internal systematic interpretation of criminal law,including the restriction of general provisions on specific provisions and the systematic interpretation among specific charges.The general provisions restrict the specific provisions in two ways: firstly,the principles of criminal law restrict the application of specific charges.For example,the function of the principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a crime in charge interpretation is reflected in the limitation of "no crime without express provisions in law",which determines that the boundary of criminal law interpretation is only in the possible scope of criminal law language.Another example is that the principle of adapting crime to punishment determines that many of the same terms in criminal law,such as violence,coercion and fabrication in different crimes,have to be interpreted differently in order to meet the requirements of balance of crime and punishment.Secondly,other general provisions restrict the interpretation of specific charges.For example,the proviso of Article 13 of the Criminal Law stipulates that it holds the effect of dominating the specific provisions,and that the acts conforming to the description and constitutive requirements of the specific provisions may be guilty according to the provisions of Article 13.There are three constraints among specific crimes: firstly,the synonymous interpretation of the same language,such as trafficking in different crimes,including the behavior of selling and buying trafficked articles,the behavior of simply selling and the behavior of buying such articles for selling;secondly,the different interpretations of the same terms,such as violence and coercion in rape,robbery and extortion,have different meanings;thirdly,the interpretation based on the relationship between the crimes and the chapter system,such as the interpretation of the means and behavior of fraud,contract fraud and various financial fraud crimes,must be judged differently according to similar legal interests protected by the chapter in which they are located.The third level of the concrete development of systematic interpretation constitutes the internal systematic interpretation of criminal law provisions,which is embodied in the interpretation of the same class of "cover provisions" with "illustrative provisions" and the natural interpretation of taking light provisions but heavy punishment or taking heavy provisions but light punishment.Interpretations of the same class can be divided into interpretations of different crimes in the same law and interpretations of different items in the same crime,of which the former is the interpretation of crimes such as arson,explosion,flooding and throwing dangerous substances as specified in Articles 114 and 115 of the Criminal Law,and the latter is the interpretation of crimes endangering public safety by dangerous methods.Interpretations of the same class should adhere to three principles: the same type of behavior attribution,the equivalence of harmful consequences of behavior,and the dissimilarity of external performance of behavior.According to the above methods,there should be no so-called "pocket crime" in criminal law.Even if there is a crime with a cover provision,the nature of the crime can still be interpreted in a closed way,and the criticism of the so-called pocket crime is based on the wrong interpretation of the cover provision of the crime.Of course,the interpretation includes the formal logic,normative purpose and the common sense of humans.Of course,there are two rules of interpretation: firstly,the conditional nature of interpretation,whose formal condition is that there should be a significant difference between the behavior pointed to by the matter to be explained and the criminal behavior stipulated in the criminal law norms,which can be clearly perceived by the general public's judgment ability.The essential condition is that the behavior pointed to by the matter to be explained has the same essential attributes as the criminal behavior stipulated in the criminal law,but there are differences in specific forms of expression;secondly,the limitation of ex officio interpretation,which makes it easy to contradict the principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a crime,so the conclusion of ex officio interpretation should be tested by the principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a crime.It is biased to think that all ex officio interpretations of incrimination are analogies,and it should be affirmed that ex officio interpretations hold certain values in the realization of the essence of a legally prescribed punishment for a crime.By interpreting guns in a criminal law by the method of natural interpretation of coordination between crime and punishment,we can draw the conclusion that guns in criminal law are different from the concept of guns in administrative regulations such as Gun Administration Law and should be defined by a certain degree of lethality.Taking guns as an example of the specific application of ex officio interpretation,it fully illustrates the significance of ex officio interpretation as one of the systematic interpretation methods. |
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