Study On Life Imprisonment System In China

Beginning in the 17~thh and 18~thh centuries of Europe,the enlightenment movement with"rational worship"and"natural rights"as its core declared the rise of the thoughts on modern human rights.The concepts such as human rights,freedom,democracy and equality advocated by the bourgeoisie began to take hold.Taking this as an opportunity,the Italian jurist Cesare Bekaria with the social contract theory as the theoretical basis announced the arrival of the age of life imprisonment based on the concept of humanitarian punishment and the criticism of the death penalty.Afterwards,Jeremy Bentham,from the perspective of utilitarian punishment,believed that the losses of executing the death penalty were more than its gains,and life imprisonment is more in line with the utilitarian principle of"the greatest happiness of the most people"than the death penalty,thus forming the two theoretical pillars of life imprisonment.Under the influence of this idea,the worldwide abolition of the death penalty has been rapidly developed,and life imprisonment has been established in the penal system in many countries,forming different patterns with different styles.Under the influence of globalization,life imprisonment system with the abolition of the death penalty as a"target"will inevitably affect the Chinese criminal law of retaining and applying the death penalty.In this sense,the introduction of life imprisonment system is historically unavoidable.However,based on the reality of China's economic and social development,the criminal policy of“small killing and cautious killing”as well as the requirements of the anti-corruption work promotion since the Party's 18th National Congress,socialist China guided by Marxist ideology has not blindly copied life imprisonment system of foreign countries but instead has established a life imprisonment system with unique Chinese characteristics in the Criminal Law Amendment(IX).Like most of the new substances,this"uniqueness"may mean problems,contradictions,difficulties and defects,which need thinking,criticizing,solving and perfecting theoretically,so that life imprisonment system can be changed from existence to rationality,from germination to maturity in China's penalty system,and sheds lights on the future criminal reform in China.This paper studies life imprisonment system in China from the three dimensions of criminal law,philosophy and sociology and constructs the overall framework of the paper with the ontology-history-reality-future logical clues.The detailed analysis is carried out based on the concepts and characteristics,historical origins,theoretical value,practical significance,dialogues and discussions,reflection and criticism,breakthroughs and reconstruction,enlightenment and prospects.In this process,there are reflections,criticisms,constructions,references,inspirations and prospects,which ultimately form the international vision,Chinese perspectives and its own patterns of China's life imprisonment system.In addition to the introduction,this paper is divided into six chapters with over 200thousand Chinese characters.Chapter one and two deals with basic theories of life imprisonment system in China;the following three chapters are about the reality of life imprisonment system in China;the last chapter,chapter six is concerned with the future of life imprisonment system in China.The contents of each chapter are summarized as follows.Chapter 1 is an overview of life imprisonment system.With the logical order of ontology,history and contemporary time,this chapter systematically combs and studies the basic issues such as the concept,characterastics,classification,historical origin,and contemporary legislative model of life imprisonment.The concept of modern life imprisonment derives from the UK and the USA and its theory stems from Beccaria's concept of humanitarian punishment and Bentham's concept of utilitarian punishment.Historically,China's"forever ban"system originated in Ming Dynasty and prevailing in Qing Dynasty,and Thamud,the case law of the Hebrew law in the West,are the historical source of life imprisonment in China and western countries respectively.Among the life imprisonment systems of different countries in the contemporary world,the USA adopted the absolute life imprisonment model based on the limits on death penalty,while the Europe employed the relative life imprisonment model based on the abolition of the death penalty.These different models serve as significant enlightenment for the penal concept,scope of application,type selection,relief channels of building a life imprisonment system in China.The second chapter deals with the value and significance of life imprisonment system in China.On the level of national outlook,revealing the value of different forms of life imprisonment in the perspective of different countries helps us deeply understand the nature of life imprisonment and further answer the question in the socialist criminal law system with Chinese characteristics—how to understand the life imprisonment originated from the Western penal system,and how to grasp the nature and position of the life imprisonment in China's penal system in the light of the national ideology;on the level of penal ontology,the essence of the criminal law of distribution principle has well solved the problem of legislative deterrence and judicial application of life imprisonment.Life imprisonment is a response to achieving the objectives of high-pressure anti-corruption,protection of state-owned property and the interests of the people as well as prevention of criminals and ordinary people from committing crimes.The basis of the penalty right should be the state's rule.The criminal law,as a mandatory norm formulated or recognized by the state,must reflect the state's will and serve the reality of the economic foundation.Life imprisonment is a response to the moment when China is at the"turning point"of social transformation and a response to the purpose of reflecting the sovereignty of the state.Life imprisonment is of great theoretical and practical significance for improving the penal structure of our country,promoting the abolition of the death penalty,implementing the"fitness of crimes and punishments",and fully implementing China's current anti-corruption policy.The third chapter is about the nature and application of life imprisonment system in China.Firstly,it sorts out the laws and regulations on life imprisonment in China,and on this basis makes a legislative interpretation of the application of life imprisonment in China.Based on the different understanding and interpretation of legislative norms,the criminal law theoretically reflects two disputes over China's life imprisonment system.On the one hand,there are opinions of strict understanding,lenient understanding as well as strict and lenient understanding of China's life imprisonment system,so which one is more reasonable,lenient understanding or strict understanding?On the other hand,there are opinions of intermediate penalties,the transition of the death penalty,the nature of the death penalty,the replacement of the death penalty,and special life imprisonment,so how should the criminal nature of life imprisonment in China be positioned?Secondly,this chapter probes into the nature of life imprisonment system in China.Life imprisonment in our country is subordinated to life sentence.In the post-death period,after life imprisonment becomes the main penalty,compared with life sentence,differences will not only lie in names,but in methodology and systemization.Thirdly,this chapter analyzes the application of life imprisonment,which applies to provision 1 of Article 50:it is directly reduced to 25 years in prison,so that it is not a question of whether life imprisonment can be commuted,but life imprisonment itself is not applicable.However,during the execution of life imprisonment,given significant meritorious performance,criminals should not be commuted in accordance with the provision 1 of Article78 of the Criminal Law.According to the Criminal Law Amendment(IX),no commutation or parole is given to criminals,which does not violate the principle of retroactivity of the criminal law from the old and the light.Finally,through the analysis of the existing four life imprisonment precedents,a conclusion is drawn that the standard amount of the applicable amount from life sentence to life imprisonment is too large and the boundary of the life imprisonment penalty is 200 million.Besides,the life imprisonment application model of“amount+plot”under the plot integration is constructed,revealing the sentence of life imprisonment and clarifying the important role of the statutory ruling from the light affair to life imprisonment.The fourth chapter is concerned with the reflection on and the criticism of life imprisonment system in China.It consists of two parts.The first part is the systematic reflection of life imprisonment system in China,including the reflection on immediate execution of life imprisonment and death penalty,life imprisonment and death senence with reprieve,life imprisonment and life sentence,life imprisonment and fines,life imprisonment and restrictions on commutation in provision 2 of Article 50,life imprisonment and prisoners,life imprisonment alternatives and orientation,the relationship between criminal law provisions and judicial interpretation.The second part carries out a philosophical criticism of life imprisonment from different perspectives,including human nature theory,social contract theory,law command and justice theory.The fifth chapter is about the breakthrough and reconstruction of life imprisonment system in China.Firstly,from the limitation of reconstruction,the connection and coordination of criminal punishment,the consideration of penalty execution cost,as well as the socialization of special prisoners,the factors that need to be considered in the reconstruction of life imprisonment system in China are analyzed.Secondly,this chapter reconstructs our life imprisonment system from seven aspects,namely,the breakthrough of conceptual dilemma,cost dilemma,management dilemma,litigation dilemma,prison term dilemma,kind of punishment dilemma and scope of application dilemma.The sixth chapter analyses the future fate and penalty reform of life imprisonment system in China.From the perspectives of death penalty reform,criminal mitigation,criminal stratification,criminal law and judicial interpretation,as well as international criminal law,the future fate of China's life imprisonment system is prospected.Taking life imprisonment as the entry point,the following penal reform opinions are proposed:the establishment of an evaluation mechanism of new criminal penalties and penal enforcement measures,the establishment of judicial hearing system for commutation and parole,the turning of the purpose of punishment,the re-recognition and prevention of the short-term free punishment,“labor compensation”of penalty and change section,reform of penalty execution,implementation of substantive crimes and punishments,as well as the progressive development of the abolition of the death penalty.