The Research Of Life Imprisonment System In China

Before modern,life imprisonment is not a pure punishment of depriving personal freedom,which contain of profligate and rigorous body punishment and hard labor more ofen.With the emergence and development of the capitalist mode of production,human civilization into the modern history.In the 16 th century,house of correction appeared in Europe.In the 18 th century,freedom penalty wrote into penal code.In the long history of punishment,penal servitude shed from freedom penalty,which develop ed into a modern penalty for the purpose of education gradually.During this time,the developing trend of life imprisonment has two directions.On the one hand,parole as the altered system of criminal punishment,which alleviate the severity of the life imprisonment;on the other hand,no-parole life imprisonment replace the death penalty to become the maximum penalty and it is widely used in some countries.Today,life imprisonment in the criminal legislation are configured for the most serious crimes in most countries.The charges are mainly concentrated in crimes of violation of the right to life,crimes against public security,political crimes and military crimes.The cause of freedom penalty in China can be traced back to ancient banishs and sentences.But the freedom penalty in a real sense is an import.Drawing lessons from the Japanese and German criminal law,the new criminal law of Qing Dynasty stipulated life imprisonment as a basic type of penalties.Since then,every historical period of the criminal law continue to use this rule.Under current social background of strict controling of death penalty and heavy punishing of corruption crimes,Amendment(Ⅸ)to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China add life imprisonment suitable for corruption and bribery crimes.Life imprisonment of our country is different from life imprisonment of other countri-es,in the concept extension,the legal character,the content of the execution,the object of application of the penalty etc.It is a penalty with Chinese characteristics.But life imprisonment of our country is not a single type of penalties,it is a penalty measures to death sentences with a suspension,it is a new type of death sentences with a suspension.It is with the purpose of continuing to improve the structural defects of thepenalty system in our country,implementing the kill-less death criminal policy,reali-zing the equilibrium of the offense in the corruption crime criminal governance.Studying the judicial application of life imprisonment is based on grasping the legal position and value of this regulations.Analysis of the law text,and understand relevant policy.According to the new judicial interpretation,the applicable conditions of life imprisonment is harsh.Although commutation and parole shall not apply to the life imprisonment convict during the period of execution,any criminal who p erforms major meritorious services during the period of suspension of exec-ution of a death penalty,can block the application of the life imprisonment.Due to life impr isonment replace the part of immediate execution of a death penalty,and the criminal law has revised standards of conviction and sentencing and mitigating circumstances,life imprisonment is more advantageous to the defendant than the original provisions of the law.So life imprisonment can be traced back to and applicable to the embez zlement and bribery crime happened before the new law has taken effect.Besides,t he existence of the pardon system is not only beneficial to the execution of life impri sonment,but also can balance the cruelty and extremity of penalty.As a new penalty institution,there is no corresponding provisions in the general part of criminal law,but just only stipulate in the legal punishment of corruption and bribery in specific provisions of criminal law,life imprisonment needs the further development in legislation.After looking at the pros and cons of life imprisonment system rationally,life imprisonment should be listed after 50 th article,about alterat-ion of execution of death sentence with a reprieve,into the general part of criminal law.To promoting the reform process of the punishments in China,expanding life imprisonment’s scope of application to the other terms of the death penalty and life im prisonment.For taking full advantage of this penalty institution to realize the judicial justice,pardon system should be added into the criminal law,and claim right of Pardon should be created.