Research On Difficult Issues Of Extortion

Changing with the development of social life, the drawbacks with regard to description of extortion which used a simple way are becoming more and more obvious. In addition, the legislation of criminal law in China related to the objective behavior of extortion are not clear and its lead to many disagreements on extortion among the legal theories. Meanwhile, it also brings out lots of difficulties in judicial practice. Four most important problems existed in the variety of arguments as to the crime of extortion. There are the relationship of objective behavior among violation, deception and extortion, the identification of aggravated circumstances concerning extortion, the issue of accomplished and attempted offence of extortion and the consideration of presupposition of extortion in a threatening way to exercise right. According to problem above, the author has several opinions as follow:1) the judgment for extortion should be integrated with the category of violence, the objects of violence, whether criminal suspect using the violence and obtaining property on the spot or not. Additionally, the judgment of fraud can become one of the behaviors for extortion, we should focus on such fictitious situation has made the victim feel threatening and psychological fear.2) As for the confusion of identification on aggravated details of extortion due to the lack of provisions on this regard in criminal law and judicial interpretation, the traditional thinking mode of listing-style research shall be substituted by summarizing-style classification of the aggravated details of extortion. In addition, the identification of aggravated details of extortion shall be made by the judge on certain principles, and taking into account the discretionary power, the scope of classification, as well as the facts of the case.3) On the question of accomplished and attempted offence by basic offence and aggravated offence in the extortion crime, the writer agrees that the basic offence, offence aggravated amount, and offence aggravated by circumstances all have the form of attempted offence. However, it is worth noting that the judgment criteria of accomplished or attempted offence of basic offence of extortion shall not be whether the perpetrator succeed in acquiring the property, but be whether the perpetrator got the property by taking advantage of the victim's fear.4) While concerning the judgment on whether exercising right by means of threatening serves the conviction of extortion, the key point of whether the perpetrator subjectively has "the purpose of illegally possess other people's property" shall be grasped. While to judge whether the perpetrator has illegal intention, the method of "criminal deductions" shall be adopted.