Research On Crime Of Leaking Of State Secrets

Leaking state secrets is a kind of crime that does very serious harm to society. Article 398 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China prescribe the penalties for two kinds of behaviors of leaking state secrets, that is, the intentional crime of leaking state secrets and the negligent crime of leaking state secrets. In the application of the law, there has a heated debate with the understandings of the subject of the crime, the definition and scope of state secrets, etc. Moreover, the provisions of this article need perfection about the legislative model, and the legal sentence. So it is meaningful to discuss on the lacks of the article and the questions.In the judicial practice, there are different opinions on the understanding of the meaning of"State secrets","The implementation of the act of leaking state secrets"and"Serious plot"."State Secrets Act"includes"Law enacted by the legislature, the State Council administrative rules and regulations, Provisions of the administrative measures and issued decisions and orders of the State Council". "The implementation of the act of leaking state secrets" is mainly expressed in two situations: The state secret is known by the person who should not be aware of this; the state secret beyond the limited scope, and can not be proved that is not be noted by those who should not know. Defying "Serious" should consider the rank, the object, the way, the motive and purposes, as well as the potential consequences and so on.Two kinds of behaviors of leaking state secrets are prescribed in the same article 398 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. The article gives these two kinds crime the same counts and sentence. The negligent behavior of leaking state secrets is not considered as a crime or just be punished when its negligence is very serious. Considering China's specific conditions, it is necessary to retain the negligent crime of leaking state secrets provisions, however, the negligent crime should be treated differently from the intentional crime leaking state secrets, because the formers subjective vicious is smaller than the latter's. In addition, our criminal law should limit the subject of the crime in the scope of state staff; reduce the sentence of the negligent crime of leaking state secrets, and add the qualification penalty to the punishment for such crimes.