A Study Into The Difficulties In Convicting Institutional Briberies

China has always been taking a firm attitude about tackling corruption and bribery and President Xi Jinping has strongly emphasized that the spreading of corruption must be suppressed.However,with rapid economic development and increasingly fierce market competition,institutional briberies in the country are making considerable progress.For insufficiency of relevant laws and unreasonable setting of penalty,difficulties are commonly seen in convicting the crime during legal practice.In this paper,the author starts with an overview of institutional bribery,conducts in-depth analysis of difficulties in criminal conviction in relation to institutional bribery,and puts forward constructive suggestions in that regard.In addition to preface,conclusion and acknowledgements,main body of the paper is divided into three parts.The first part,namely an overview of institutional bribery,describes the legislative history thereof:In 1988,the Supplementary Provisions on Punishments for Corruption and Bribery stipulated that an institution could be classified as body of crime,laying a foundation for studying of institutional bribery in China;in 1997,the Criminal Law officially included institutional bribery into the Chinese criminal justice system,followed by gradual improvements and supplements by judicial interpretations.The second part analyzes common difficulties in conviction and sentencing concerning institutional briberies.Specifically,it discusses the difficulties in conviction from three aspects including subject of crime,volition of institutions and "pursuit of illegal gains" and the discussion about sentence for institutional bribery focuses on circumstances for sentencing.The third part raises constructive suggestions on conviction of institutional bribery,including:a)legislative provisions should be formulated to clarify the boundaries of conviction of institutional bribery(subject of crime,volition of institutions and "pursuit of illegal gains");b)a reasonable sentencing system should be established(by reference to tainted witness exemption system and guilty plea system)to specify criteria of sentencing for institutional bribery;and c)punishment setting should be perfected.