On Joint Bribery Crime

Bribery crime is such a criminal offense as may only be committed by particular persons with specified identities or social status, which crime has long being regarded as the major crimes being crack down by the criminal legislation of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter "China"), due to the reasons that such kind of crime is not only in contravention of requirements for securing the honesty and cleanness of duty-related conducts of officials, but also debase the social ethnical standards and stain the established reputation of the CPC and the People's Government of China. The Criminal Law of China, as revised in 1997, provides for Bribery Crime, Crime of Taking Bribery by Corporate or Enterprise Personnel, as well as Crime of Taking Bribery by Units, which revision further extends the subjects of Bribery Crime to State Functionary, corporate personnel, enterprise employees, as well as units to a certain extent, thus playing an active role in controlling and cracking down various bribery crimes. Although greater efforts have been attempted to deal with bribery crimes by China Government, such kind of criminals try their best effort to wriggle out legal liabilities in a more diversified manner and more frequently, such as the State Functionary conspires with abovementioned other personnel to take bribery. In the light of the subjects committing bribery crime, joint bribery crime may be classified and distinguished as follows: i.e. bribery-taking crime committed jointly by more than one state functionary, bribery-taking crime committed jointly by state functionary and non-state personnel, bribery-taking crime committed jointly by state functionary and corporate, enterprise personnel, as well as bribery-taking crime committed jointly by state functionary and appropriate units. The complexity of the subjects of bribery crime further complicates the Joint Bribery Crimes, which themselves are in a troubled condition, in addition, unsatisfactory legislation and different understanding of laws and facts result in the failure of achieving the target unified practices in respect of bribery crime, in judicial field. This paper, composed of three parts in total, attempts to make a discussion and study on issues relating to bribery crime committed jointly by state functionary and non-state personnel, bribery-taking crime committed jointly by state functionary and corporate, enterprise personnel, as well as bribery-taking crime committed jointly by state functionary and appropriate units.The first part mainly deals with issues in regard to bribery crimes committed jointly by state functionary and non-state officials, in which part, the author makes a discussion on the following issues: i.e. whether non-state official can be determined as Joint Offender of bribery crime, whether such non-state official can be held as an Offender whose misconduct serves as essentials of a bribery crime; determination of essential conducts, instigation, assistance of bribery crimes; the distinction between the assistance of joint bribery crime and the essential conducts of crime of introduction for facilitating a bribery; as well as the determination of bribery crime committed by state functionary and persons having special relationship with the former.The second part focuses on issues in respect of bribery crime committed jointly by state functionary and corporate, enterprise personnel. The author, based on discussion on theories in respect of bribery crime committed by state functionary and corporate, enterprise personnel, proposes to adopt "duty convenience theory" to ascertain such joint offense. Furthermore, issues relative to the amount criteria at which the bribery crime jointly committed by state functionary and corporate, enterprise personnel, is convicted, as well as to assumption of liabilities therefrom.The third part mainly discusses issues relating to bribery crime committed jointly by state functionary and units, in which, at first, the author makes a discussion on whether unit may be regarded as a subject of a joint offense and concludes that appropriate may act as subject of joint offense; secondly, the author puts forward his own opinion on how to determine the nature of the conduct of taking bribery by both unit and state functionary; and finally, a discussion on the determination of amount involved in bribery crime committed jointly by units and state functionary, as well as on issues relating to sentence of joint offenders.