On Several Issues Of The Legislation And Practice Of Crime Of Misappropriating Public Funds

The criminalization of misappropriating has existed since ancient times, but it has always been mixed up with, sometimes even attached to embezzlement.In the supplementary stipulations of the standing committee of the National people's congress on punishing the crime of Embezzlement and the crime of Bribery promulgated in 1988, it was separated as an independent crime for the first time. But it was only after the revision of criminal law in 1997 that the act was first stipulated in the criminal law.The legislation about misappropriating public funds is perfecting and there have been argues on the content of legislation. One hot issue is if misappropriation public articles (only common articles) can be criminalized. As for the social harmfulness, misappropriating public articles is not lighter than misappropriating public funds. As for the legislation, from feudal society to the effectiveness of revised criminal law of 1997, misappropriating public articles was incorporated into the criminal law in various forms. But since then, no basis has been found to criminalize misappropriating public articles. As for the relevant legislation in foreign countries, misappropriating public articles and funds are punished without distinction in France, Romania and Mongolia etc. Further more, incorporating misappropriating public articles into criminal law made up for the defects of accusations and the logic between the articles of current criminal law.Another hot issue is if the Specific use should be the required element of the crime of misappropriating public funds it is one of the principles for legislation that act of purpose is regarded as the requiredelement of a crime. Act of motive is generally regarded as details for measuring penalty. The specific use is act of motive, instead of purpose. The criterion for the seriousness of misappropriating public funds is the amount and the period of time of misappropriating. It is unnecessarily connected with the specific use. Adoption of specific use will bring lots of trouble into judicial practice.The complexity of the society the Variety of committing a crime, the different understanding on the provisions of law, as well as some ambiguous factors of the case, will make some cases very complicated. While we are analyzing a ca se, we should focus on the four required elements of a crime, and between embezzlement and this case.