The fifth session of the "Innovation Forum" of CASS Institute of Law was held in Beijing on September 19, 2023. At the forum, a lecture was given by Professor Liu Renwen, the head of the Criminal Law Department of CASS Institute of Law and the head researcher of the Innovation Project Team on "New Topics of the Criminal Rule of Law in Social Governance". The lecture, entitled Commentary on the (Draft) Amendment (XII) to the Criminal Law, was presided over by Professor Deng Zibin, a research fellow at CASS Institute of Law, and attended by nearly 50 researchers from CASS Institute of Law and CASS Institute of International Law, as well as graduate students from the Law School of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Jiao Xupeng, Li Qiang and Zhang Zhigang, three associate research fellows at CASS Institute of Law, and Zou Yuxiang, an assistant research fellow at CASS Institute of Law, served as interlocutors at the forum.

In the lecture, Professor Liu Renwen first introduced the background, main content, and characteristics of the (Draft) Amendment (XII) to the Criminal Law. Then, he analyzed the changes made to the Criminal Law in the draft amendment, and put forward suggestions from the perspectives of concept, policy, system, and legislative technology. He also expressed his views on the constitutional basis and practical scheme of equal protection of private enterprises by criminal law, the institutional boundary and the collateral effect of strengthening the punishment of corruption committed by internal personnel of private enterprises, why the crime of offering bribes should be given the same punishment as the crime of accepting bribes, and how to establish the relevant supporting systems of criminal substantive law and procedural law. Finally, Professor Liu Renwen pointed out that, with the promulgation of the Civil Code, Chinese law has entered the era of codification, and it is urgent to make systematic reflections on the re-codification of the current Criminal Code.