On The Vitality Of The Criminal Law

Vitality of criminal law, which is the force of the living of criminal law and its function, consists of vitality of criminal institution, vitality of criminal thoughts and vitality of legal organs and fatilities. Existance of criminal law is its premise. Vitality of criminal law has two characteristics: eternity and change. Eternity means that vitality of criminal law exists in criminal law and law. Change means that vitality of criminal law changes during criminal law's existence for some concerned factors. The factors affacting vitality of criminal law include system of goven-ment, social stabitity and reasonableness of criminal law. Eternity is the premise of change. Change is the embodiment of eternity. Studying vitality of criminal law is the need of recognizing correctly position of criminal law in legal system, realizing function of criminal law, implementing rule of criminal law and realizing value of criminal law.The study of vitality of criminal law is to think of its origin. First question which must be solved is the foundation of vitality of criminal law. The foundation consists of four aspects. 1. Foundation in economy. Economy determines criminal law ultimately. Product, quality ,content, many characteristics, development and change of criminal law are all determined by economy. 2. Foundation in politics. Politics dominates criminal law. State, content, development and perfection of criminal law are all dominated by politics. 3. Foundation in culture. Culture is the foundation of criminal law. Criminal law is a special embodiment of culture. Foundation in culture consists of criminal foundation and punitive foundation in culture. The former is to show the conflict between the mainstream of culture and the counterculture. In contemporary China, crime is mainly reflection of feudal culture in traditional cultures and external culture conflicting with socialist culture. The latter is to show punish-ment is reflection of the mainstream of culture in a society limiting and suppressing counterculture. With the different ways of limiting and suppressing counterculture, different punitive cultures such as retribution, obsolute equality, educadtion, prevention come into being. In contemporary China, the punitive concept of retribution and absolute equality is very popular. Under the condition of market economy, resaonable punitive culture should be brought about. 4. Foundation in law. Foundation in law touches mainly upon two points: the relation of general principles of law and principles of criminal law and the relation of criminal law and other laws. The former can be interpreted that general principles of law are the bases of principles of criminal, the development and change of general principles of law can result in the development and change of principles of criminal law, and at the same time, the development and change of principles of criminal law enriches general principles of law. The latter can be interpreted that criminal law is guarantee to other laws' implementation.So far as criminal law itself is concerned, its vitality lies in the following aspects: 1. Perfect criminal legal system. The fouiidamental implication of criminal legal system is criminal law and institution. Perfect criminal legal system consists of perfect criminal code, perfect special criminal law and reasonable interpretation to criminal law. It is the foun-damental content of rule of criminal law and the premise of it, makes criminal judicial action in order and provides citizens with the indication to obey criminal law. 2. Reasonableness of criminal law. It means that criminal law is rational knowledge to crime, punishment and the relation between them. It requires that criminal law should conform to development of society and be implemented. It is the premise of rule of criminal law and good source of carrying of criminal law. 3. Reasonable criminaljudicial interpretation. Reasonable criminal judicial interpretation means the interpretation made by judicial organs and judges under reasonable interpretation...