The Research On Seizure And Forfeiture Procedure Of Property Involved In Criminal Case

The thesis is composed of three parts besides an abstract and a conclusion.The first part presents what the property relating to criminal case (hereinafter reference as Property) is. Property is a term that may be used in criminal procedure activities, which is same as illegal gains, contraband, property of one's own used to commit a crime specified in the article 64 of Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. There are a lot of differences between Property and illicit goods, illicit money, things may be used as evidence, however, there are also some commonalities between them. Criminal Procedure Law of People's Republic of China fails to stipulate the preservation measure for Property, in order to regulate the preservation of the Property, it is advisable for the legislature to amend such law and enlarge the scope of objects of seizure. For the purpose of this thesis, only the forfeiture procedure is chose as the object of study, and which has been divided into ordinary forfeiture procedure and special forfeiture procedure.The second part explores existing problems of seizure and forfeiture procedure of Property from theoretical and practical perspective, such as problems of basic principles, problems of seizure procedure and problems of forfeiture procedure. As details, the principle of legal prescription in judicial procedure has been violated and the principle of participation in procedure and proportion principle have to be improved to satisfy the requirement of protection of the property rights of citizens. With regard to the problems of seizure procedure, the threshold of initiation of such procedure is too low and the law fails to define the scope of seizure clearly, which may cause that the property will be seized randomly. What's more, the seizure inventory may not be made regularly and the seizures may not be kept well, which will be easy to infringe upon the property rights of citizens, however, the law fails to provide the victim effective accesses to seek for remedy. The main problem of ordinary procedure lies in the law fails to provide effective accesses for third party to participate in procedure. In addition to the explorations mentioned above, this party also analyzes reasons for those problems.The third part puts forward some suggestions for improving seizure and forfeiture procedure of Property. The core of improvement of the seizure procedure is how to restrain the power of seizure, so the law may restrain, on the condition that providing perfect review, such power to a certain extent before the seizure procedure starts. In addition, the law shall raise the threshold of initiation of seizure procedure, add the contents of seizure inventory, improve the rules of keeping the seizures. As to the improvement of ordinary forfeiture procedure, the law shall, at pretrial period, put the situation of Property under control, and shall improve the procedure for the participation of the interested parties. As to the improvement of special forfeiture procedure, the forfeiture of the Property shall not be based on that the defendant has been convicted or sentenced. In addition to the improvements mentioned above, the law shall improve other systems in order to insure that the seizure and forfeiture procedure of Property may be abided by to the greatest degree.