The Bribery Study

At present, corruption has become one of international hazard concemed by many states. In which, bribe crimes are multiple crimes, including bribery, institutional bribery, bribing crimes, bribing institution crime, introducing bribe crime, institutional bribing crimes, which are the working emphasis of prosecution. Our state pays special attention to punishing those people who take actions against the law of bribe crimes. After many years'divergence, that the object of bribe crimes is national officials'honesty is commomly accepted by most legal scholars. But this isn't embodied in our corrent Criminal Law. According to our law, bribe is just substantial interests, which leads to so many confusions in legal practice. However, the principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime is the basic one in criminal law, and the provision in Chinese criminal law is explicit very much. So, the bribe is only money or property, and however extensively we interpret, other substantial interests can not be included. But with our country developing that fast, the form of bribe goes far beyond the scope of bribe restricted by our Criminal Law. Bribe should consist of property interest and nonproperty interest. Among general constitutive elements of bribery in the criminal law, "securing benefit for others" has difficulties in application because of more and more strict condition and illegible interpretation, which resulted in feeble effect of criminal remedy. Whether benefit is secured for others can not change the essence of the bribery. And this constitutive element, whose existence indicates the back line of defence of anti-corruption, should be abolished. As the same, "what is inappropriate benefif" is also a big bug in constitutive elements of bribing crime and the stipulation of "securing inappropriate benefit" is not scientific and practical. It gives people such a hint that a person can get appropriate benefit through bribing national officials in spite of that such a deed infringes our society'just and fair. However, no matter what the forms of bribing are, they must be forbidden by the law. Of all bribe crimes, introducing bribe crime seems very strange becase it can wholly be contained by other bribe crimes. The deed of introducing bribe, in fact, takes side either by the position of bribery or by the position of bribing. It is unnecessary to draft such a crime, and it naturally burdens the judicial body with the need of proving whether the suspected person has independent intention to come into contact the bribee and the briber. Actually, such a state of affairs does not exist.The United States Convention against Corruption is the first legal document against corruption in the history of the UN, and a perfect international convetion up to now. The regulations of bribe crimes in current Ciminal Law of our country's is different from those of in the convention, which China is a member of the convention. Mainly speaking, the regulations of bribe crimes on current criminal law are different from those in the convention in three aspects, which are forms of bribe, bribing foreign public officials and officials of public intemational organizations, and the combinations of bribe crimes. After China accedes United Nations Convention Against Corruption, we should change the aspects in the current criminal law. Firstly, the object of bribe should be expanded from "money and goods" to "undue advantages". Secondly, such constitutive elements as "securing benefit for others" in bribery and "securing inappropriate benefit" in bribing are to be abofished. It is not only our international law obligation that China must fulfill, but also the need of legal practice.