Research On Criminal Effect Of Economic Compensation

Economic compensation is the most common way of damage compensations in the civil law. It plays the most effective role in mitigating tense relations between the infringer and the infringed and in protecting legitimate interests of the infringed. However, in the civil suit collateral to criminal proceedings, economic compensation not only plays a unilateral role in protecting interests of the victim, but also has a criminal effect of accordingly mitigating punishment on the offender who positively compensates the victim and shows his repentance.Besides introduction and conclusion, this article consists of five chapters discussing criminal effect of economic compensation.Introduction presents three cases with different verdicts. These cases trigger consideration about the criminal effect of economic compensation.Chapter One defines economic compensation and criminal effect of economic compensation and introduces application status of economic compensation in judicial practice. Chapter Two analyzes arguments over criminal effect of economic compensation. Opponents argue that this practice that the offender will be punished lightly through economic compensation violates principle of equality which is the basic principle of legislation and judicial practice. It may cause court’s verdicts unjust and the victim’s psychological resentment is not vented. Supporters consider that this practice is consistent with the modesty character of criminal law and complies with the trend of mitigating punishment in the international criminal law. It also embodies China’s criminal policy of temper justice with mercy and is of great significance for prevention of crime and restoration of the damaged social relations. This article supports that criminal effect of economic compensation has its practical significance. Chapter Three and Four separately introduce and analyze legislative situations of criminal effect of economic compensation abroad and in China. Both in the penal code of the civil law system and in the case law of the common law system, there is a definite regulation and a wide application of a lighter penalty or being exempted from punishment following economic compensation. In China, a series of judicial interpretations and sentencing guidance, which is recently promulgated, gradually takes economic compensation into sentencing rules, which makes criminal verdicts more flexible and friendly. Chapter Five analyzes defects of criminal effect of economic compensation in its contents and proceedings when applied in judicial practice. In order to show superiority of criminal effect of economic compensation over protecting victim’s legitimate interests, this chapter puts forward improvement both in legislation judicial practice.Conclusion summarizes viewpoints in this article and hopes that criminal effect of economic compensation will function well in legislation and judicial practice.