The Research On Error In The Criminal Law

Error in the criminal law, not only affects offence form and criminal liability of a person, but also relates to accomplished offender and attempted offender. It is an important subject in the criminal law. Many countries have proclaimed in writing the criminal liability of the error conduct. But there is no regulation about error in our present–day criminal code and much controversy has existing in the criminal theory realm. This thesis is based on the basic theory of our criminal law and the criminal judicature practice. It also uses some viewpoints of foreign criminal law for reference, and make a rough and shallow inquiry to the controversy in order to have a more profound and scientific knowledge of the error in the criminal law.Firstly, this thesis generally discusses the concept, scope, characteristic and classification of error in the criminal law. After inspecting the concept made by the native and foreign scholars, two focuses to the divergence have been discussed: Whether error in the criminal law contains strike error and whether it limits to intentional crime. Then this thesis analyses the basic characteristic from the subject, object and content of error in the criminal law. As regards the classification, it considers the traditional classification error of fact and error of law to be rational and accurate.Secondly, this thesis discusses in detail the concept, classification and identification of criminal liability of factual mistake. Error of mistake means disagreement between subjective cognition and objective fact in a broad sense, and it may divide into error of object, error of subject, and error of objective aspects from our theories of the constitutions of crimes. Afterwards, this thesis analyses and explores at length the identification of criminal liability of factual mistake in terms of this classification pattern.Besides, this thesis discusses the concept, classification and handle principles of error of law. Error of law has a wider scope and broader extension than error of illegality. It may divide into three types: mistake crime for non-crime, mistake non-crime for crime, and mistake of conviction and sentence. Centered on the disputes among academic circles, and on the basis of all kinds of theories, this thesis argues that error of illegality which consists of harmfulness to society,should impede the establishment of deliberate intention.At last, this thesis also gives its own opinions on the status of errors in the criminal theories and its legislation consummation, so as to achieve the unification of criminal theory and judicial practice.