On The Act To Execute A Crime

The word “Act to Execute a Crime” is derived from Crime and Punishment which was written by thefamous Italian pendogist Beccaria."Act to Execute a Crime" is regarded as the beginning of punishabilityin that book. With the development of modern system of attempted crime,"Act to Execute a Crime" hasturned into a special legal concept from its general meaning.Influenced by the legal thoughts of French revolution, The Penal Code of France, which was publishon June10,1796, stated:"The unfulfilled heavy offense which is shown by the external action and is inaccordance with the "Act to Execute a Crime" will also be punished as heavy offense if it is interrupted bythe occasional factors and the factors are independent of the perpetrator." The new Penal Code of France of1810inherited such a provision and formulated the "Act to Execute a Crime" in the form of legislationfor the first time. Then, many law countries began to follow the suit. For instance, a similar provision inJapan stated:"Compared with accomplished crime, the attempted crime which is suspended by snags ormistakes of the offender will be reduced the penalty by one or two degrees." As such, Germany was stillinfluenced heavily at that time. The criminal law of Prussia in1851introduced the legislation model ofFrance and then the former criminal law of Germany made the corresponding provisions on the basis ofPrussia law in1871.With the development of the criminal law theory, the worldwide scholars with different standpointsput forward various opinions and heated debates on the issue of "Act to Execute a Crime". This issue isalways the focus of law countries, especially in Japan and Germany in which three doctrines, including"doctrine of subjectivity","doctrine of objectivity" and "doctrine of compromise", come into being."Act toExecute a Crime" is a crucial factor to distinguish crime from noncrime and a core issue in British andAmerican law countries. There are distinctions between "subjectivism" and "objectivism" in these countries.The two legal systems hold different views on the issue and no unified theory appears nowadays. There isno such a theory as perfect because none of them can elaborate the judging standards of "Act to Execute aCrime" accurately. "Act to Execute a Crime" is such an important concept that it is necessary for us to give a detailedanalysis of it. Based on the research findings of different countries and systems, the author tries to proposesome advice on the modification and improvement of the related theory in China and then come up with amore reasonable and scientific judging standard for the "Act to Execute a Crime".The thesis consists of four parts except for introduction and conclusion:Part one: Basic theories of "Act to Execute a Crime". The concepts, characteristics, status andfunctions of the act of perpetrating as well as the meaning, content, legislation motivation and improvementof "Act to Execute a Crime" are analyzed and discussed in detail in this part.Part two: General theories and evaluation of "Act to Execute a Crime" at home and abroad. Firstly, thegeneral theories of civil law countries, especially the three typical doctrines, including "doctrine ofsubjectivity","doctrine of objectivity" and "doctrine of compromise", are discussed elaborately. Secondly,the general theories of British and American law countries are talked about. Finally, the Chinese generaltheories as well as the four principal theories, including formal-objective theory, material-objective theory,unification of subjective and objective theory and comprehensive standard theory, are mainly discussed.Part three: Provision of the new judging standards of "Act to Execute a Crime" in China. This partputs forward the judging standards of "Act to Execute a Crime" in the field of Chinese criminal lawexplicitly. And then the reasons why we should insist or employ these standards are discussed in detail.Besides, based on the specific judicial practice in China, the principles under which we employ the newstandards are expounded particularly.Part four:"Act to Execute a Crime" in special type of crime. This part discusses the judging standardsand the problems needing to be paid attention to in the process of judging the "Act to Execute a Crime" ofnegative crime. Meanwhile, the judging standards and the various theories of action libera in cause at homeand abroad are also discussed in this part.