Study On Victim Factors In Criminal Law

As one party of a crime, victim have the direct interests with the final result of crime, ought to be an indispensable party of criminal legal relationship. Introducing victim into the field of criminal law has great significance on perfecting criminal law theory system and developing criminal legislation and judicial practice. Therefore, this article is based on the vision of criminal law, and attempt to study the victim issues systematically. This article is divided into five parts. The first part is the definition and history of victim in criminal law. Compared with Criminology, we can define victim from three aspects in criminal law:violation behavior, violation object, and violation subject. Victim can be defined as:natural persons or units who suffered material damages or mental injury from criminal behavior directly. After tracing the history of victim, we try to research the reasons of the evolution of the victim's status in criminal law, and point out that victim should regain his subject status, and become an independent subject in criminal legal relationship. The second part is the analysis of several common victim behaviors in criminal law. This article select these factors which have not been legalized by the criminal law as subject, and analyze the victim's commitment, the victim's fault and the victim's forgiveness from the conception, the conditions and theoretical foundations. The third part is the functional analysis of victim in criminal law. The victim factors play an important role in determining crime through affecting the notion of crime and crime circle. It also play an important role in sentencing criterion through affecting the criminal responsibility, the meanings, the purposes and the functions of penalties and penalties applicable impact on penalty of discretion. Victim factors have the effect on the criminal law theory system in all dimensions. After observing the foreign criminal law theories and criminal legislations, we take the victim's commitment as justification defenses, and take the victim's fault and the victim's forgiveness as lenient subjects. The fourth part is reviewing on the present situation of the victim factors in China. The victim's commitment, the victim's fault and the victim's forgiveness in the legislation and judicial practice of China are missing. And the underlying cause for this situation is the binary model of criminal legal relationship. Victim is excluded from a dominant position both in criminal law theory and criminal legislation, and it lead to criminal law facing the difficulty. The fifth part is on the thinking of bringing the victim issues into criminal law theory and legalization by criminal law. This article proposes build the ternary model of criminal legal relationship. In order to get out of the plight of judicial practice, and foster the development of the victim factors in the field of criminal law, we can learn from restorative justice model, and establish the victim's corpus position, and legalize victim factors by criminal law.