Strictness But Unseverity

With the rapid economic growth and the improvement of people’s living standard,food, which is closely related to people’s daily life, has drawn considerable attention.However, due to the deficiencies of China’s market economy, the food safety issue isvery prominent. Facing the severe food safety environment, the criminal law shouldplay an important role as the last line in protecting the social justice. Under suchcircumstance, the Amendment (VIII) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic ofChina has revised the crime of producing and selling the poisonous and harmful foodand the crime of producing and selling food that does not meet the safety standards,trying to provide a more circumspect protection for food security. From the contentand actual effect of the Amendment (VIII) to the Criminal Law, though theamendment of the Amendment (VIII) to the Criminal Law further expands the rangeof criminal law to combat acts that threaten food safety and to some extent it has somepositive effects, from the point of the practice effects of judicial and the normativetheory of criminal law, it still has many deficiencies waiting to be further improved.Hence, China’s criminal legislation of food safety should be based on normativetheory of criminal law and learn rewarding experiences from other countries toprovide more circumspect protection for food safety. In addition to the introductionand conclusion part, the thesis is divided into three parts.The first part of the thesis is the research of criminal legislation and the problemsof food safety in China. First of all, the thesis analyzes the history and currentsituation of the crimes of food safety as the foundation for the thesis. Second, fromthe view of the practice effects of judicial and the normative theory of criminal law,the thesis analyzes the crime of food safety from different aspects, including thelegislative model, the behavior of crime, the provisions of the subjective, the freedomand death sentence, and the system of fine. Through the analysis it is found that thecharacteristics of the criminal legislation of food safety shows "severe but not tight",which cannot safeguard the food safety effectively. The second part of the thesis is the review of criminal legislation of food safety.It analyzed the criminal legislation of food safety from the perspective of comparativelaw of several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Germanyand Japan. Although there are some differences between these countries, there areindeed some common features among them. On the one hand, a great majority ofcountries formulate accessory criminal law to manage the crime of food safety. Andthe behavior of crime, subjective aspect of the criminal law is very detailed andrigorous that the "farm to table" regulation system of food safety is basically set up.On the other hand, compared with China the penalty in other countries is moremoderating. This feature is consistent with the criminal structure of "strict but notsevere" that Professor Huaizhi Chu once advocated, which can provide a reference forthe improvement of the crime.The third part of the thesis is the methods of perfecting the criminal legislation offood safety. In order to deal with the food safety crime legislation issues in China, thethesis points out that the government should combine China’s current situation withother countries’ experiences and with the criminal structure of "strict but not severe"to provide reference for the improvement of the criminal law. Among them, the"strict" mainly includes three aspects-that is the advocating of accessory criminal law,regulating the helping behavior as perpetrator, and amending the subjective aspects;The "not severe" includes two aspects-that is the moderating of the freedom anddeath sentence and the reform of penalty system. As a result, it is able to provide newideas for China’s criminal law to safeguard the food safety and build a betterenvironment for food safety.