The Awareness Of Illegality In Legal Offences

At present,our country’s criminal law has entered the era of legal offences.The constitutional elements of legal offences under high-frequency legislation are increasingly difficult to be recognized by ordinary people.The past happened in recent years have made us re-understood the awareness of illegality,and we need to think about a question,whether the application of the traditional principle of not knowing the law but exemption can still produce a fair and reasonable judgment? This article summarizes the current various theories about the awareness of illegality,looking at the theoretical development and judicial practice in other countries.There are three main theories in civil law countries,including Intentional theory,Responsibility theory and Sentencing Circumstances theory.After understanding three theories,I think that Intentional theory is more suitable for our country.Intentional theory believes that the awareness of illegality is a sub-element of intention.The perpetrator does not have the awareness of illegality,which means the person is not intentional.When the wrong understanding of illegality can be avoided,the criminal law punishes the corresponding negligence.This article responds to various questions about Intentional theory,demonstrates the importance of illegal knowledge errors and factual knowledge errors having the same responsibility,and proposes that the knowledge of social harm should be the minimum standard for determining the existence of illegality awareness.Then,a specific discussion was made on the review criteria of the avoidance of illegality awareness errors,based on whether the perpetrator has the objective conditions for understanding the law and whether he or she has tried to find the law to avoid errors to determine whether the errors are avoidable.It is hoped that the theory of wrong understanding of illegality can be extended from academic circles to practice,and it can help judicial practice to solve the awareness of illegality.