On The Boundary Between Unit Crime And Natural Person Crime

In order to rein in heating growth of unit crimes,the Criminal Law in 1997 officially established the system of unit crimes.Through the statistics of the judicial cases of contract fraud during 2013-2017,it is found that the unit crime has become more and more prevalent in recent years,and the judiciary authorities have intensified the crackdown on the contract fraud crimes of the units year by year,but it also has consequences.Under the current situation of incomplete unit crime theory and legislation,as the unit crime subject and its behaviors manifest features different from that of natural persons,the judiciary authorities have a various understandings of unit crimes,which lead to the occurrence of the misjudgment and missed judgment of unit crimes.In addition,since the punishment for unit crimes is generally less harsh than that of natural persons,the judiciary authorities often choose to ignore the facts of unit crimes,instead,to give criminal sanctions directly to persons in charge or persons directly responsible in the name of natural person crime,so as to balance the crimes between unit and natural person.On the current background of lack of the unit crime concept,a big disagreement has emerged on the boundary between unit crimes and natural person crimes in terms of their theories,forming various theory views like "in the name of the unit","illegal gains are owned by the unit","determined by the collective unit or determined by the person in charge","for the interests of the unit" and the "within the business scope of the unit" and others.These theory views reveal the features of unit crimes that are different from natural person crimes through different angles.Judging from the current judicial practice,all these five theory views are applicable,but in almost all cases,none of them is identified as the unit crime only by one of these criteria.Instead,all are identified by two or three theory views as the basis on a verdict.This also reflects that in the current judicial practice,unit crimes do not have a systematic and comprehensive identification criterion.Through the above analysis,it is concluded that these five criteria are based onthe surface features of unit crimes that distinguish them from natural person crimes,and it is unable to offer a comprehensive explanation of the connotation of unit crimes.Therefore,the defects of the traditional unit crime's judging criterion should be abandoned.Through the phenomenon of the distinguishment between unit crimes and natural person crimes,a systematic and comprehensive judging criterion of unit crimes shall be obtained—that is the theory view of a comprehensive criterion.This theory view analyzes the constitution of the unit crime in essence,takes the unit's overall will as its core element and combines the two factors of the unit legitimacy and the criminal behavior conducted by the unit organization to analyze whether the unit's behavior constitutes a crime.This criterion can unify the judging criterion of unit crimes,which makes their confirmation more reasonable,and also helps to maintain the judicial consistency and authority.Unit crimes under the comprehensive criterion are not all unit crimes.It shall also be combined with other influence factors to confirm the crime—two factors,as one is whether the Criminal law stipulates the unit crime,another one is whether the behaviors of the unit meet the specific crimes of unit crimes.Only when the unit's behavior conforms to the comprehensive criterion and meets these two factors as well,the boundary of unit crimes and natural person crimes shall be correctly distinguished.