On Strict Liability In Criminal Law

Strict liability is a criminal imputation principle that derives from common lawsystem countries. Some civil law countries also began to apply strict liability in suchas environmental crime and other fields. Whether strict liability exist in China’scriminal law and should we put the strict liability into China’s criminal law legislativesystem is a hot is issue, which disputed by scholars.Firstly, the paper explores the origin and development track of strict liability,hackling on the concept of strict liability that Chinese and overseas scholars definiteand clarify exactly my own view of the concept definition of strict liability, on basisof this, concluding the characteristic of strict liability on its basis and drawing a cleardistinction between strict liability and other concepts. I define the strict liability fromsubstantial and procedural aspects; the strict liability of substance means it doesn’tneed offence for one or more factors that actors behave. It is a doctrine of liabilityfixation that the actor’s criminal liability can be investigated. The strict liability ofprocedure means presumption of fault has been placed on actors. And it acts as thecriminal liability that actors should prove the lack of subjective sin for defense reason.The second part states the philosophical basis and legal ground of strict liability,at the same time we should investigate the application of strict liability in all countriesof legal systems. In my view, although our system of criminal law different from thecommon law system countries and the continental law system like Japan, theirsuccessful experience in handling with the crime should be adopted as a reference.Soon afterwards, I propose my view on the rationality debate of strict liability inour criminal law theoretical field and analyze the dispute clause of strict liability inChinese criminal law. Finally I come to the conclusion that our current criminal lawdon’t exist strict liability. Put the strict liability into china criminal law legislative systemFull-scale is offensive to our fundamental criminal theory as well as not conform to thejuridical practice. It’s not feasible. But we see that there existing a series of problemsin dealing with offenses of public hazards like environmental pollution, food safetyand so on. I believe that if introduce the strict liability system within a limit in this kind of crime; we can better perform the protection function of criminal law.In the last part, in view of the rationality of strict responsibility system, therequirement of reasonable lawsuit and the demand of our judicial practice, I considerthat in a limited range, the strict liability system can be leaded into serious offenses ofpublic hazards. Then it would of great advantage in curbing this kind of crime.Consequently, I put forward the suggestion of establishing legislative principle ofstrict liability system in our criminal law should conform to modesty principle,definite principle, accuracy principle. The concrete construction in criminal law andcriminal procedure law should be focused on the balance of the fight against seriouspublic hazards and protection of human rights.