Principles Study Of Criminal Responsibility

Criminal responsibility is a most important basic problem in criminal law theory. Not only is criminal responsibility the bridge and link between crime and punishment, but also has its own independency and substantial value. Because many problems about criminal law system are researched centering upon criminal responsibility in criminal legislation, criminal justice and criminal theory. To a certain extent, criminal responsibility could be deemed as the key problem of criminal law. As a result, the research of criminal responsibility, especially the cognizance of criminal responsibility has an important theoretical and practical significance.As a premise, this article first introduces the controversy on the concept of criminal responsibility in the world, and makes a preliminary evaluation. On the basis of it, the author deems it difficult to make a clear definition, therefore, we can learn from Anglo-American Law System about the method of dealing with the concept, and replace the definition by giving some certain connotations. And then this article raises some certain connotations of the concept of criminal responsibility.To explore the issue of criminal responsibility, we must also ascertain its status, so as to clear the role of it, and provide power and theoretical support for the research of it. So this article carries out a study about the status by the view of criminal law system and criminal policy respectively, immediately. Then the article studies the status and significance of the cognizance of criminal responsibility specially. The author deems that the key issue of criminal responsibility should be cognizance of it, but not the basis of it. The author further deems that the criminal responsibility has a continuous and inextricably link with crime, and in one word, the cognizance principle of criminal responsibility can not be separated from the theory of crime.The cognizance principle of criminal responsibility is the focus of this article. This article studies the differences on the cognizance principles among Civil Law System, Anglo-American Law System and China, points out the reason of the differences, and makes a comment about the three different kinds of systems. Finally, on the basis of the above research, the article makes some suggestions for the construction of the cognizance principle system of criminal responsibility. The author deems that a scientific and rational system of criminal responsibility should be satisfied with the standards of logic, experience and practice, and then puts forward the contents and form of it. As to the contents, it should include the social harmfulness and personal dangerousness, collectively as the valuable evaluation criteria, and justifiable cause, besides the improved crime constitution, as the factual evaluation criteria in order to construct a multi-standard system of evaluation. As to the form, in order to make an all-round evaluation whether the conduct of the actor should be held criminal responsible, it's a better choice of the two-level evaluation mode, affirmed by both of the positive and negative principles. Among them, the improved crime constitution exists as a fully positive principle, social harmfulness and personal dangerousness embody both the negative principle and the positive principle, and the justifiable cause is entirely a negative principle, which can completely deny the existence of criminal responsibility.In conclusion, through a comparative study, this article analyzes some basic problems of criminal responsibility, particularly about the concept, status and the cognizance principle system, in comparison with foreign achievements. And the article focuses on the cognizance principle system of criminal responsibility on the basis of establishing central position of the cognizance principle, and expects to establish a cognizance principle system of criminal responsibility which appropriates to Chinese national conditions.