Study On Sentencing Standards From The Perspective Of The Responsibilism

It is of the essential characteristics of crimes to be punitive.It is the content of criminal penalties to deprive the perpetrators of their personal benefits and to make them suffer from pains.Therefore,the correct idea as well as the appropriate methods of sentencing are of direct relation to the defendant's human rights protection status and the degree of the Rule of Law in our country.Sentencing is of a scrupulous quantitative process,requiring the establishment of a clear "reference system"-the criterion of penalty measurement providing guidance for the sentencing activities.The passive Responsibilism,represented in Latin "Nulla ponea sine culpa" is the cornerstone of modern criminal law.Responsibilism should not only restrict the establishment of crime,but also control the severity of punishment.Though the Supreme People's Court,through years of research and development of the Sentencing Guidance,had greatly enhanced the degree of standardization of sentencing in China,it did not fully implement the requirements of Responsibilism,leading to a possible consequence that the purposive punishment of a person might go beyond the range of his due punishment,being the reason why this paper calls for studying the criterion of penalty measurement in the context of Responsibilism.In order to achieve justice in penalty measurement,we have to consider the legitimacy of a penalty.The justification of the penalty's being either to achieve the "retributive justice" or to meet "the preventive needs" predetermines the basic value of sentencing.Upholding "synthesis idealism",this article advocates that retribution and prevention are the bases of the legitimacy of punishment and that prevention shall not exceed the limit of retribution.The Responsibilism in penalty measurement requires the circumstances of penalty measurement be divided into the plots of due responsibility and the plots of purposive responsibility.We can only consider the purpose of crime prevention within the range of one's due responsibility,the prevention not exceeding the limits of one's due responsibility.This article advocates the "Point Theory",being that whether to interpret from the perspective of logic or from values,the due responsibility can only be a Point,being a middle step between the starting point of sentencing and the final proclamation of sentences.It plays a transitional role and becomes a carrier of applying the plots of the penalty of prevention.Given this reality,the research object of this paper,being the criterion of penalty measurement,actually refers to the penalty of responsibility.