The Crime Handled Only With Complaint In Chinese Criminal Legislations

The crime handled only with complaint means the kind of crimes in which the complainants are legally requested to indict to the juridical departments themselves in order that the defendant would be convicted with criminal responsibility. This kind of crimes is a basic type in the classification of criminal legislation. The crime handled only with complaint had not been paid much attention to in the area of penal circles since long, but after the publication of the dissertation "Research on the Legislative Value of Crimes Handled Only with Complaint" by Qi Wenyuan in 1997, the situation has largely changed and the crime has gained much more attention ever since. In this dissertation, the author has stood on the researching outcomes already achieved, made good use of comparative analyzing and also the advanced foreign experience, with the expectation that all that he has gained would do something good to the advancement of the research and legislative reformation of the kind of crimes. On the basis of the indigenous legal culture and institutions of China, he poses some new scopes in which the kind of crimes would be applied as well as some new operating systems. In the introduction, the author gives an explicit description of the reasons and start points of his research, which should attribute to the progressively flourishing victimology. This area of study calls for better protections to the interests of the victims and the endowing of more rights to the victims, including the right to indict. The main text has been divided into four parts: The first part refers to several legal concepts, such as the crime handled only with complaint, handling only with complaint, right to indict, complainant, etc. Besides, the author has also discussed the possibility for legal persons to be the victims, the nature of the prosecuting departments' indicting rights and some other matters that are easily mistaken. At the end of part one, the author concluded three characteristics of the kind of crimes which helps a lot later. The second part is based on the study of traditional Chinese legal culture, criminal contingence, protection on the victims' rights and the logical positioning of juridical resources, etc. The author argues much about the value of the crimes, and states that the crimes root not only deeply in the traditional Chinese legal culture but also in the contemporary criminal theory. This character makes a good theoretical basis for the revolution and development of the crimes. The third part contains some particular situations of the legislation from both inside and outside of China. The method of comparative analyzing is used here to discuss the commonness and difference of them. In order to evaluate clearly the present legislation in China, the author has selected the legislations in some representative foreign countries to study, as well as to find out the commonness and differences. All that he wants to do is to make clear the right way for China to perfect its own legislation on the kind of crimes, In the last part, the author re-defines the scope of the crime's application by the criterions of the trespass to personal legal interests, the prescription of unserious crimes in the "Criminal Law" of China and the easiness of proving. The author also suggests that the scope of their application should be enlarged. At the meantime, the author gives some reasonable suggestions on the revolution of the crime of embezzlement. At the end, he attempts to perfect the legislation on the litigating procedures of the crime handled only with complaint, and he also suggest to construct the surrender institution, time-lapse institution and the complaint withdrawal institution, etc. in the hope that the kinds of crimes would become a complete operating system all the way from legislation to practice.