The Predicament And Perfection Of Criminal Legislation For Bribery Crime

The crime of bribery resulted from the social atmosphere of giving "personalized gift for public service" has been deeply rooted in the Chinese social life.At present,bribery crimes in China have also shown new characteristics with the development of society.In the crime of bribery,the relationship between offering bribes and accepting bribes is very close.Official data showed the number of crimes of bribery in China is huge and is growing.At the same time,the number of criminal cases of offering bribes in China is investigated far less than the number of cases of accepting bribes.The current situation of bribery crimes in China shows that there are certain problems in the current criminal legislation.Through specific analysis,we can find that,first of all,the criminal law in our country has certain restrictions on the constitutive requirements for bribery crimes,as a result of which the scope of punishment for such crimes has been narrowed.Among them,“for the benefit of others”,the constitutive requirement for crime of accepting bribes has made some of the acts that do not "seek for the benefit of others" but simply accept the property of others out of the scope of criminal legislation;“seek illegitimate interests and benefits”,the constitutive requirement for crime of offering bribes makes emotional investment bribery does not constitute a crime.Secondly,the stipulations for extorting,accepting and offering “property” limit the scope of investigation and punishment of bribery crimes by the judiciary,which makes the offering and acceptance of “illegitimate benefits” outside the scope of punishment.Thirdly,there is a certain imbalance in the sentencing mechanism of bribery crimes.There is a problem with the standard of sentencing for bribery whose amount standard is significantly higher than the crimes of the same type of behavior but without identity elements,such as theft,fraud,embezzlement and extortion.Such a standard of sentencing is not conducive to the function of preventing and punishing the crime of bribery in China,which hinders the formation of a clean and honest society.In terms of offering bribes,China's criminal legislation wants to deter bribery criminals by restricting the applicable conditions of special voluntary surrender system,but it does not delete the system for confessions of criminals who commit bribery.In fact,this can not curb crimes of offering and accepting bribes at the same time,and makes the role of punishment difficult to play.In light of this,China should improve the relevant legislation on bribery crimes.On the one hand,it should clearly define the constitutive requirements of bribery crimes.First,delete the restrictions on constitutive requirements of bribery crimes,including for the interests of others” and “to seek illegitimate interests”,and put behaviors of simply accepting the property of others and emotional investment bribery without seeking interests for others into the crimes of accepting and offering bribes.Secondly,change the constitutive requirements of extorting,accepting and giving “property” to extorting,accepting and giving “illegitimate benefits”,bringing behaviors of accepting and offering "illegitimate benefits” to the category the penalty range of criminal legislation.On the other hand,it should improve the sentencing mechanism of bribery crimes,change its criterion of imposing penalty,and adjust the criterion of imposing penalty for crime of bribery in line with the crimes related to theft,fraud,embezzlement and extortion or even lower,thus efficiently cracking down on the criminals who accept or offer bribes,ensuring the equivalence between crime and penalty and beefing up the governance of bribery crimes in China.At the same time,it should improve the sentencing mechanism of commutation of bribery crimes,adjust the sentencing standard of offering bribes,and modify the special voluntary surrender system,thus promoting the sentencing mechanism for crimes of bribery to form a prisoner's dilemma to speed up the solving crimes.Finally,the crime of bribery cannot be solved simply by criminal legislation.Social governance should also play an important role by extending clean government culture and the right concept of value on the one hand,and on the flip side establishing a sound social supervision mechanism,bringing into full play the reporting and supervision mechanism of the masses and wielding criminal legislation to contain crimes.