Research On The Linkage Mechanism Between Property Sentence And Commutation And Parole

Property judgment items refer to judgment matters involving the criminal’s property as the main content in criminal judgments,which include property penalties for fines and confiscation of property,civil compensation attached to criminal civil judgments,and also judgments such as the recovery of stolen property and the confiscation of illegal gains.For a long time,there have been problems of high application rate,low attention and low enforcement rate of property judgments in China,which not only affects the seriousness of the implementation of national criminal punishments,but also undermines the authority of the law.In order to effectively solve this practical problem,in 2016,the Supreme People’s Court formally established the linkage mechanism between property judgments and commutation and parole(hereinafter referred to as the linkage mechanism)in the form of judicial interpretations,linking commutation and parole with the performance of property judgments,which played a positive role in solving the problem of difficult enforcement,and was conducive to safeguarding judicial fairness,safeguarding legal authority,and repairing social relations.In order to investigate the practical effect of the linkage mechanism,the author took advantage of the convenience of work to conduct in-depth research on a prison in Sichuan and found that since the implementation of the linkage mechanism,the enthusiasm of prison criminals to pay property judgments has been significantly improved,and the total implementation rate of property judgments of prison convicts in the three years from 2018 to2020 has exceeded 60%,and the linkage mechanism has played an important role in practice.However,the linkage mechanism has not fundamentally reversed the difficulty of enforcement,which is mainly reflected in the limited coverage of the object,which only plays a role for criminals who need to commute their sentences and parole;the incentive effect of the linkage mechanism is limited,and it can only change the subjective performance willingness of the criminals,but cannot change the objective ability to perform;in addition,the participants in the linkage mechanism such as courts,procuratorates,prisons,criminals,and injured parties have different interests and demands,resulting in poor cooperation and operation of the linkage mechanism.The reasons for this are both "front-end" reasons,that is,the reasons for the linkage mechanism itself,such as the inability to accurately define the true performance ability of the convict,the lack of standards for linking the performance situation with the range of commutation,the lack of smooth channels for family payment,and the equivalent of the payment situation to "indeed repentance performance",and the "back-end" reasons,that is,the deep-seated reasons behind the linkage mechanism,such as the lack of property investigation and preservation mechanisms,the unclear property sentencing standards,and the poor enforcement linkage mechanism.To improve the linkage mechanism,it is necessary to exert efforts from the "front end",bridge the defects of the linkage mechanism itself,further clarify the criteria for determining the ability to perform,and accurately define "having the ability to fully perform","having the ability to perform partially" or "not having the ability to perform";it is necessary to establish specific standards for linking the amount of payment for property judgments with the range of commutation,and quantify the payment situation with the range of commutation,so as to reasonably guide the expectations of criminals;it is necessary to smooth the channels for payment on behalf of criminals,facilitate the payment of criminals’ families,and solve practical difficulties;it is necessary to explore a system of discounting the labor remuneration of criminals.Let the criminals use the income from their labor to pay compensation and pay fines.Not only that,but also from the "back end",that is,from the top-level design to consider the establishment of pre-trial property investigation and preservation mechanism,the establishment of a fine reduction system,the exploration of the application of the property criminal and easyto-use system,etc.,to carry out traceability governance,to solve the deep-seated problems behind the linkage mechanism,in order to further solve the property enforcement problems.