Research On Surrender Of A Legal Entity

The Criminal Law of PRC revised in1997 expressly stipulates that a legal entity is one of subjects of crime, thus makes the criminal law of China evolve from one-subject to two-subject of natural person and legal person. Disappointingly, the penalty system of the criminal law is not advanced accordingly, which do not expressly set down whether the provisions about surrender is applicable to a legal entity or not, so there arises some issues about the applicability and application approaches of the surrender provisions to a legal entity. This article is committed to discuss and solve the applicability, application approaches and penalty of a legal entity's surrender based on current criminal statutes and legal theories, so as to make some petty contributions for the renovation and progress of legal theory and legislation of criminal law in China. This article is constituted of three parts and in over 30,000 characters, of which are about 3,000 characters in footnotes. In the Chapter One, it is to clarify the rationale why the surrender provisions are applicable to a legal entity. It firstly makes an introduction and analysis on the dispute over the surrender provisions of a legal entity in present criminal law researching circles, and then expands on the theoretic, legal and practical basis of establishing the surrender rules for a legal entity. In the Chapter Two, it mainly explores the elements for determining the voluntary surrender of a legal entity. With the consideration that the surrender rules for a legal entity both have the characteristics of the criminalization rules and surrender rules for natural person, it classifies the determining elements into formal elements and material elements. The formal element means the element required by a legal entity itself to determine its surrender, and the material element means the element required in all general surrender cases including the surrender of natural persons. Furthermore, it discusses some special situations in the determination of surrender of a legal entity. In the Chapter Three, it moves the focus to the penalty for a legal entity when it voluntarily surrenders. The penalty for a legal entity is classifies into the penalty for the legal entity itself and the penalty for its members who committed criminal offence for the benefits of the legal entity.