Study On The Knotty Problems Of The Crime Of Collecting Illegal Debts

The crime of collecting illegal debts has been added into "The Amendment(XI)to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China",with a view to pursuing the purpose of regulating illegal debts’ collection and preventing the "black-oxide" of private debt collection,which can improve the legislative system for illegal debt collection,uphold social public orders and defend the legitimate rights and interests of debtors.Staying committed to the view of compound rights and interests and based on the position of the legal system and the specific provisions of the crime of collecting illegal debts,it can be found that the criminal object includes both the social public order as the main object and the personal rights and interests of the secondary object.But the financial order cannot be used as the object of the crime."Illegal debt" refers to a debt underpinned by the common will of the parties,which violated national prohibition laws and regulations(excluding violations of criminal law prohibitions).Thereby,it’s more appropriate to take the annual interest rate of 36% for borrowing as the standard of usury.Besides,the extension of illegal debt should not cover routine loans,labor debts,etc.In terms of the identification of "collection behavior"."Violence"refers to the violence in a broad sense that includes both human and physical violence,which merely gets the degree of minor acts of violence.The designation of "Coercive acts" includes the purpose of causing fear in others and all evil and circular acts committed against the victim.As for the act of "Restricting the personal freedom of other",it should clarity that personal freedom means actual personal freedom,which is more peaceful and generally directly in contact with the victim’s body and for the debtor himself or against the person with an intimate relationship between the debtor.The act of "House-breaking" should be interpreted in the same way as the constituent elements of the crime of illegal home invasion and the act of a creditor or other related person entering the debtor’s home must be illegal."Intimidation" should adopt the standard of the combination of subject and object,in other words,for ordinary people,the intimidation act by the perpetrator cause fear in the victim and the victim actually has fear according to his own understanding of the creditor,life experience,knowledge level,etc.The essence of "Stalking and harassment" is that the creditor repeatedly stalks and harasses the victim or related persons,severely disrupting the victim’s normal life rules and the victim has generated severe fear as a result."Serious circumstances" is an important standard for the criminalization of this crime.It’s supposed to take a comprehensive consideration from the guiding and restraining functions of legal interests on case’s and combined with the violence,coercion and other illegal debt collection behaviors of this crime.At the same time,the distinction between this crime and other crimes such as"Picking quarrels and provoking trouble","Crime of robbery"and"Crime of pillage"can be made through the subjective purpose of the perpetrator,the degree of harm to social order,the degree of harm to the victim and other aspects.