A Study On Some Issues For Chinese Penalty System

Penalty system is an important content of Chinese Criminal Law. The thesis makes analysis on relevant issues of the death penalty abrogating in penalty system through parsing the disadvantages in Chinese penalty system and the necessity of its reform basing on the principle of constructing a sound penalty system. The disadvantages in Chinese penalty system, the necessity of its reform and the essential principles of the reform as well as the issues concerning death penalty abrogating are annotated in the 3 parts.In Part 1, it is introduced to the history of Chinese penalty system, and the limitations of Chinese current penalty system are analyzed. First, as Chinese basic penalty policy, combination of punishment with leniency which has made great contribution in history is out of date. Criminal policy rests on aggravated penalty stage. Accusations for death penalty had been reduced in 1997 Criminal Law. But the remained 68 death penalty accusations still make China the country with the most death penalty accusations in the world, which leads to Chinese death penalty accusation setting generalization. Taking the influence of certain individual cases into consideration, the drawers of the Criminal Law make some articles aggravated, which results in its inapplicability. So the conclusion that Chinese penalty system is aggravated is drawn. Second, the shortcomings of kinds of punishment of Chinese penalties revealed in practice are discussed, from which the conclusion that Chinese kinds of punishment are not quite applicable in practice is drawn. Finally, only the penalty regulated by penalty system can be regarded as Chinese penalty since China adopts single regulation form. Therefore, Chinese penalty system is confined to arrange of kinds of punishment and the penalties of crimes in Criminal Law, which results in many disadvantages in the understanding of penalty system in macroscopic view. In part 2, it is analyzed on the necessity and essential principles of the reform of penalty system. First, the necessity of penalty system reform is summarized by analyzing the problems existed in penalty system and its influence—as an indiscerptible part of the social system, the penalty system, which is disjointed with the development of the society, needs reform to meet the requirement of the development of the society. Second, it is a key issue for the construction of Chinese penalty mechanism and the spreading of penal legal idea that a sound penalty system is established. Coordination principle, moderation principle, fair principle and beneficial principle should be insisted by a sound penalty system in both the static written form of the dynamic operating process.In part 3, it is analyzed on the influence of reducing or abrogating death penalty. First, the theoretical methods in death penalty abrogating issues is summarized by analyzing the limit-abolish pattern for lessening of the negative value brought by death penalty abrogating in penalty system and the meaning of the penalty system reform of death penalty abrogating. Second, the statutory sentence reform in Chinese criminal code is the main content of penalty system reform. Death penalty is to be limited even abolished by changing the relevant articles of death penalty in Chinese Criminal Law: I. changing the regulation related to absolute death penalty by setting other punishments for the crimes. II. Analyzing the harms that the crimes subjected to death penalty brought and discussing whether the crimes deserve death penalty. III. Classifying crimes in Chinese Criminal Law and abrogating death penalty on those crimes that bring less harm to the society. IV. Ensuring the kinds of punishment and punishment quality in Chinese penalty structure and the statutory sentence consistent with the international convention, and abolishing death sentence with immediate execution. On the design of the penalty mechanism, the death penalty's conviction and sentencing should be clear in criminal justice and execution. Chinese traditional retributions concept—an eye for eye, has been influence their idea about death penalty. Therefore, to abrogate death penalty in China should change Chinese people's revengeful penalty view first. The core issue lies in the equivalent penalty view which has lasted for thousands of years. The traditional equivalent quantity death penalty should be transferred to be equivalent quality death penalty. The kind and range of punishment should be drawn from scientific analysis of circumstances of crime and circumstances of sentencing.