On The Thought Of Lenient Treatments To Aged In Criminal Law

With the continuous development of the social economy, ourcountry has stepped into the ranks of aging countries in advance.The increase of elderly group has brought a series of socialproblems and pressure, especially under the condition that weare still a developing country with improper aging. As a result,elderly crime becomes the issue of common concern gradually.To Conform to the historical trend of the time, the amendmentsto the criminal law of the People’s Republic of China (eight)initiate the legal institution of light punishment to the agedcriminal,which is a make up for the lack of regulationsspecialized in the old criminal responsibility. Pitying theelderly has gradually aroused the attention of the legislator.Although the regulations for the elderly criminal penalties arestill limited to the level of criminal justice policy and remainneed to complete and specify, pitying the elderly has becomea legislative trend recognized and accepted by the generalpublic to some extent.For it is a traditional virtue for Chinese nation to respectthe aged and care for the young, there were mercy principle forthose elderly, juvenile, disabled, or invalid criminals inancient Chinese dynasties’ codes that clearly pointed out thatthose elderly, juvenile, disabled, or invalid criminals couldbe absolved or mitigated of the penalty. This highlighted theprogress and civilization of the ancient legal system.Meanwhile, many foreign countries’ criminal laws also setspecial institution about lenient punishments to the agedcriminal. And such sprits to tread elderly offenders lenientlyare further implemented through the judicial practice. Thiskind of trend is in line with the international spiritualprinciple to pay attention to and protect the lawful rights andinterests of the elderly, and corresponds to the developingtrend in the world today. The scientific theory system of criminal responsibility wasfounded when the western punishment law system established, andhas improved steadily in the continuous development of the penallaw. The criminal responsibility is not only to be with thenature of the offense, but also in line with the purpose of thepenalty. So,lenient punishments to the aged criminal conform tothe trend of China’s economic and social development, andpromote the mainstreaming of a socialist society values, andmake it more conducive to achieve the realization of socialjustice.Specialized requirements of elderly criminalresponsibility in the criminal law of the People’s Republic ofChina (eight) comply with the domestic public opinion and thedevelopment trend of international community, which are notonly the return of China’s traditional thinking of havingcompassion on the elderly, but also the representation on thehumanity in China’s Criminal Law reflecting our practice ofhumanitarian principles. The amendments make our criminalresponsibility system more scientific. However, we also oughtto pay attention to the insufficiency and the disappointmentof our criminal legal norm while recognizing its positivesignificance, and keep trying to find measures to improvetheoretically and practically.