| The right to freedom of correspondence is a basic right of citizens, and is also recognized by international conventions and legislations of most countries in the world. Our country also emphasizes the protection of such right. Article 40 of our Constitution provides that " the right to freedom of correspondence and correspondence secrets of the Chinese people should be protected." Article 252 of the Criminal Code also provides the crime of infringing upon the right to freedom of correspondence, which says that "those who commit hiding, destroying or illegally openning other's letters, thus infringing upon the citizen's right to freedom of correspondence, if the details are series, he or she will be sentenced to the following imprisonment for a specific term of 1 year or criminal detention。" However, the provisions of this Article do not reflect new changes in the society, and obviously lag behind era and there are also some imperfections.This thesis divided into five parts, discusses several important aspects of the crime of infringing upon the right to freedom of correspondence, and proposing some suggestions to legislation.The first part is about the object of this crime. The object is the citizen's right to freedom of correspondence. The author begins the analysis of the right with making distinctions between "correspond " and "communicate". In general, communications are made through electric appliances, whereas, besides this, correspondences also include exchange of information by writing letters, which means that "correspond" has broader scope than "communicate" and the latter is included in the former. The right to freedom of correspondence includes the freedom of correspondence and its secrets. The freedom of correspondence means that citizens are free to correspond with each other and it is also free to correspond or do not to correspond. Correspondence secrets mean that citizens are entitled to keep their correspondence secrets from being illegally infringed upon by others. In the meanwhile, such right is limited under certain circumstances. In addition, the author proposes that the right to freedom of correspondence of the entities should also be included as the object of this right, and should be protected by the Criminal Code, which will be meaningful for theoretical research and legal practice and the social life as well.The second part is the target of the crime. It is generally considered that, the target is the letters of others, but there are lots of opinions on this matter. This problem should be analyzed from two aspects. The first is that what is other's letter? And the second is what is a letter? The author suggests that in order to give extensive protection to the right to freedom of correspondence, other's letters should contain those letters between citizens and entities, and letters means written materials or visible non-written objects or the combination of the two, which are send in certain ways to exchange messages or correspond, including traditional letters, telegrams, telex, e-mails, SMS, and mixing messages. Although this view is much different from the tradition, it is necessary and feasible to make such explanation to punish crimes and protect rights to freedom of correspondence. The third part is the objective aspect of this crime, which includes serious actions of hiding, destroying or illegally openning other's letters, thus infringing upon the citizens' right to freedom of correspondence. This part mainly discusses the concepts and differences among the three kinds of action. Hiding other's letters means hiding letters that are not deserted by the sender or the receiver, without authorization or legal ground, preventing others from accessing the letters. Destroying others' letters means destroying or deserting others letters that are not deserted by the sender or the receiver, without authorization or legal ground, preventing others from accessing the letters. Illegally openning others' letters means destroying the structure of the letters... |
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