| With cases of collision caused by human factor on the rise and damagethus caused growing, collision has been a seirous threat to the safety ofmaritime transport as well as to the marine environment and safety. In orderto protect legal interest and prevent crime, the introduction of criminalregulation in collision is extremely necessary.Analysis of possible criminal offenses in a collision is carried out fromthe following four perspectives: first of all, the captain, crew, pilots, shipowner, charterer, manager and other related people are the main eligiblesubjects in the criminal law of maritime transport; secondly, collisions mayinfringe the life and health of a particular majority, or do harm to the publicand pirvate property, or even endanger the safety of the marine ecosystemenvironment and the society; thirdly，Maritime transport employees violaitngthe rules of driving and navigation, ship management regulations and otheracts of legal obligations are all harmful behaviors and there should be a causal relationship between the conduct of such harms and harmful results inthe sense of criminal law; finally, most collisions are due to negligence,therefore such collisions may constitute criminal negligence.Prerequisite for a country’s criminal law to apply to the evaluation ofcollision crime is that the country has criminal jurisdiction. Flag statejurisdiction should be the main basis which our judicial departmentinvestigate and affix the criminal responsibility for the collision. AlthoughArticle133of the Chinese Criminal Law can used to evaluate the collisions,there are the following drawbacks: uncertain standard in filing criminalinvestigations, confusion in the protection of legal interests, inaccuratecharacterization of behavioral problems, etc. Therefore it is very urgent toadjust the criminal legislation. We can set up flag state jurisdiction and anindependent criminal law for collision and adjust the jurisdiction of criminalcases at sea to resolve all maritime casualties. |
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