NCJ Number
84007
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 73 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1982) Pages: 135-316
Date Published
1982
Length
182 pages
Annotation
This English translation of the 164 articles of the 1979 Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China also presents three Western analyses of the historical background, contents, and implications of the new codes.
Abstract
These are the first substantive and procedural criminal codes enacted since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. A reaction to the preceding periods of lawlessness that culminated in the Cultural Revolution, the enactment of the new codes shows that antisocial conduct is a serious problem in China. Questions exist regarding the Government's ability to implement the written law, given the enormity of the country's population (and therefore its crime rate), its authoritarian heritage, and probable resistance to rule of law by the Communist Party's elite. The code is divided into two parts-- general and special provisions. Part I defines guiding ideology, crimes, punishments, concrete applications of punishments, and other provisions. Special provisions comprise crimes of counterrevolution, endangering public security, undermining the socialist economic order, infringing upon the rights of the person and the democratic rights of citizens, property violation, disrupting the administrative order of society, disrupting marriage and the family, and dereliction of duty. A commentary analyzes the judicial system as reflected in these codes; it examines court structure and authority and pretrial and trial proceedings, focusing on the right of defense, the presumption of innocence, equality before the law, and appeal and review. Another commentary compares the Chinese and Soviet codes of criminal law and procedure in terms of philosophy and purpose, rights of the accused, conceptions of popular justice, procedural provisions, and punishments. Finally, an essay reviews the legal presumption of innocence from imperial China to the present, comparing the 1979 code to the Soviet, West European, and Republic of China codes. Debate on the matter continues in China; conceptual and practical problems of the provision remain to be solved. Footnotes accompany each article. See NCJ 84008 to 84010 for individual papers.