Study On The Doctrine Of Corporate Criminal Liability In The Common Law System

The legal person to be discussed in this article is not limited to the corporate body in modern society,but referring to a collection of independent personality and will composed of a certain number of natural persons in a broad meaning.This article intends to proceed from the development and change of the corporate criminal liability in the common law system,then sort out its history and current situation and predict its future development direction.And finally,it will focus on the plight of unit crime in China and try to propose ideas of solutions.First of all,the article will trace the development history of the corporate criminal liability in the common law system,and sort out its development process and rule.This paper holds that the development of corporate criminal liability shows a trend of gradually expanding the scope and changing the imputation doctrine.Although the common law system is the first to recognize the criminal liability of legal person,the development process shows that it has adopted a circuitous path which investigate the corporate criminal by means of the behavior and will of natural person.It is undeniable that this way does provide great convenience for the corporate criminal liability investigation.Along with the development of society,the imputation doctrine is unable to deal with certain corporate crime phenomenon,therefore,with theoretical research and judicial practice shifting their concentration,a trend of advocacy to emphasis on the characteristics and independent personality of legal person itself has appeared.Subsequently,the article will introduce the current doctrine of corporate criminal liability in the common law system,then explore the breakthrough or loosening of it in theory and practice,and try to explain that the doctrine is undergoing a transfer from the vicarious liability which bases on the behavior and will of natural person to the selfidentity liability that focus on the features of corporation itself.The traditional theory expounds the theoretical basis from the two perspectives of legal fiction and real entity,and it is noted that both have the characteristics of investigating the corporate criminal liability by means of the member of legal person.Although the doctrine of vicarious liability has existed in the common law system for a long time and is still in the mainstream position,it cannot cope with some tough problems in modern society.Therefore,the focus moves to the theory which emphasizes the characteristics of legal person,and calls for attention to self-identity theory of legal person appear.Not only that,there is a tendency to break away from vicarious liability and replace it with selfidentity liability in both judicial practice and legislation.Although the transformation from vicarious liability to the self-identity liability has not been completely completed,with recognizing the independent personality of legal person,the doctrine of corporate criminal liability centered on the characteristics of legal person is the perfect choice to deal with criminal dilemma in modern society.Finally,this paper focuses on the predicament of unit crime in China,and tries to find the way to solve the dilemma of it with the theory of corporate criminal liability in common law system.Although unit crime is recognized in our country,there are more or less problems of it in both legislation and judicature.We believe that our country is going through a transformation path similar to that of the common law system.Therefore,it is of great significance for us to solve the problems faced by unit crime by drawing on their experience of corporate criminal liability in the common law system.“By other's faults,wise men correct their own”,this paper hopes to explore the way out of the predicament of unit crime in our country with the help of corporate criminal liability theory in common law system.