Study On Retroactivity Of Criminal Law

The retroactivity of criminal law refers to whether a new criminal law can apply to the behaviors occurred before it come into force and has not been tried or the judgment has not been confirmed yet. If it apply to the aforesaid behaviors, it has retroactivity; If not, it has no retroactivity. The criminal law revised on Oct.1, 1997 adopted the "old and light" principle. In the judicial practice, however, the existing law can not solve the hard problems regarding to the application of former criminal law and new criminal law and the application of the "old and light" principle due to the faultiness of the legislation. This thesis will discuss the article 12 of the existing criminal law and give some advice on how to improve it. There will be four parts in this thesis:Part 1 is the preface. This part first introduces the concept of the retroactivity of criminal law, then the "old and light" principle adopted by most countries, and finally the history of retroactivity of criminal law in China.Part 2 is about the issue of "Intermediate Law", In this part we educe the "Intermediate Law" issue first through a case, and then analyze its concept and the disputed points of that issue and my point of view. And we also reason my point of view through the aspect of theory, practice and legislation example of foreign countries. And in the end I made my suggestion of the article 12 of the criminal law.Part 3 is about the problem of retroactivity of limitation of prosecution. First we induce the its problem with a case and make my point of view in it, then we analyze the problem of existing law regarding this issue. And make my suggestion in the end.Part 4 is about the retroactivity problem of the effective judgments. First we induce the its problem in the practice with a case, and then introduce existing argument and make my point of view. And discuss this problem through the valuation of the retroactivity criminal law and criminal judgment effectiveness. And in the end discuss the existing problem of this issue and give out my suggestion.