Foundation and development of People’s Republic China’s criminal legislation

Abstract

After establishing of the People’s Republic China, criminal law in the PRC was enshrined in separate acts. However, these acts cover only a small area of counteraction to crimes, and the criminal law policy has been recognized as the main means for combating crime in judicial practice. In this case, the state authorities began to intensify activities to draft a bill of the Criminal Code. The 1979 Penal Code, which entered into force on January 1, 1980, was adopted to more effectively implement the function of social regulation, the protection of society and the protection of human rights. In the future, it was proposed to thoroughly and systematically review the criminal law. Evolution of social relations due to economic development caused needs for significant amendments in Criminal Law. On March 14, 1997, the National People’s Congress adopted the Penal Code of the People’s Republic China, which entered into force on October 1, 1997. This Code, being the most perfect, systematic and modern criminal law in China’s history, embodies on the scientific level the basic dogma of criminal law. In the course of further improvement of the criminal legislation, several amendments were adopted to the Criminal Code. The authors examine in detail ten groups of amendments, introduced into the General and Specific parts of the Code, and present conclusions on the direction of such amendments. In general, the evolution of China’s criminal law’s Dogma may be interested for Russian and European researchers of codified criminal law, allowing refers to examples of successful changes in Criminal legal regulation in accordance with the needs of socio-economic relations.