On The Preservation And Abolishment Of The Elements Of "Seeking Benefits For Others" Of Bribery Crime

Article 385 of China’s current criminal law stipulates that a state functionary who,by taking advantage of his position,extorts money or property from another,or illegally accepts money or property from another and seeks benefits for another,is guilty of taking bribes.However,there are many disputes about this provision in practice.This article indicates that the establishment of the crime of acceptance of bribes in China’s current criminal law requires "seeking benefits for others".Requirements of "seek benefits for others" is not in China’s criminal law at the beginning.This paper expounds the generation and development process of the element in detailed,argues where the disputation of the element’s existence comes from in the view of its criminal legislative process,and proposes a point of view by analyzing the existing two propositions of "cancelled" and "reserved"..The main idea of this paper is to preserve the element of "seeking benefit for others",and to emphasize the reasons.The author believes that the legal interest that bribery crime violates is purity of the duty behavior,which requires that the state functionaries perform their duties in accordance with the established rules,and act or omission for the interests of others because of bribe is forbidden.Therefore,the crime of acceptance of bribes needs "seeking interests for others" as a constitutive requirement.In addition,through analyzing and the differences between state functionary and general public,discusses on the necessity of the requirement of "seeking interests for others" in terms of distinguishing the bribe crime from legal acceptance,and distinguishing the bribe crime from the swindling crime.At the same time,through the judicial practice of bribe crime investigation analysis,“seeking interests for others” is an important fulcrum in bribe crime investigation,and also the inevitable requirement of crime punishment and human rights assurance in detective activities and judge activities.Finally,in the current criminal law,there are differences in dealing with the “seeking interests for others” element between “bribe” and “bribery”,as well as some documents made excessively expanding explanation to the "seeking interests for others" element,the paper proposes some queries to the above judicial explanation and two improvement suggestions for the "seeking interests for others" element.