Research On Criminal Responsibility Of Unit Crime In China

Unit Crime is a concept which is relative to natural crime. Researches of criminal law theory and legislation are major concern about "natural person". With the development of commodity economy, the legal system of juridical person has established. Corporate organizations with legal person can promote social development. However, at the same time crimes have become increasingly prominent. Because the juridical person has more powers, such as finance, organization. Once this juridical person commits a crime, they will bring bad effects to social and will cause more damage than natural person. Unless we take steps to punish them, the growth of damages will continue. At this point, the original criminal law to natural person can not meet the actual needs of modern society, jurists began to think about the problem of Unit Crime and expand the exploration to the theoretical level. In the17th century, England became the first country which recognized corporate crime should bear criminal responsibility. However, in1980s our country did’t admit it. As the Unit Crime has become increasingly prominent, especially smuggling became more serious.In1987the Customs Law of the People’s Republic of China determines that unit can be the crime subject of smuggling. The units’ criminal system in the Penal Code, which was established in1997, signs that China has entered into a period of comprehensive recognition of crimes committed by units. Due to China has a very short history of the theoretical research, the understanding of unit crimes in academic world still exist different opinions. For a deeper understanding of unit crime, the paper focuses on the criminal liability of unit crime in China. It is divided into four parts to put forward their own views.The first part gives the overview of unit crime. It depicts the theory of unit crime on criminal responsibility, the evolution and concept of legislation. In this section, the author concluded that the willing of the whole unit is the key point to define whether it is a unit crime or not. This idea also can open the window for the deeper study on the criminal responsibility of unit crime.The second part is major focus on the subject of crime, which becomes the most essential point to distinguish the crime by a unit and crime by a natural person. Thus, the author analyzes how to judge a subject belongs to unit crime or not. In this part, we also can get more information about five types of unit crime, included companies which criminal law has already announced and the subsidiaries, branch offices, private sectors, sole proprietorships, joint businesses, etc. which are under management of the five types. At the same time, this part included the investigations on knotty problems that in one-person company, branch office, the villagers’committee and private non-enterprise entities.The third part introduces the principle of unit crime punishment. The bipartite punishment is in the first place and single punishment is an aid to the punishment principle in China. Plus, combined reasons like the principle of bearing responsibility solely for one’s own crime, justice and fairness and the prevention function of the criminal law, this part demonstrate the disadvantages of single punishment and the advantages of bipartite punishment.The fourth part talks about the deployment of criminal law. This part describes the situation of the criminal law deployment on the unit crime in China. The author dissects defects of the single punishment’s fine penalty in China and also gives out solutions to improve the fine penalty and suggestions to add more systems of punishment.