Abstract: An important task of the recodification of criminal law is to systematically optimize the sentencing circumstances, which is necessary not only for reversing the tendency of "excessive focus on conviction but insufficient attention to sentencing” but also for promoting the standardization of sentencing. Article 61 of the Criminal Law should be reshaped, that is, various reasons affecting sentencing should be enumerated in detail on the basis of clarifying the responsibility of the perpetrator and the relationship between criminal responsibility and prevention. Specific sentencing circumstances should be improved and supplemented. For example, the system for imposing lenient punishments on those confessing to their crimes and accepting punishments and the system of corporate criminal compliance should be incorporated into the Criminal Law, so as to provide them a legal basis in the substantive criminal law; the "restoration of legal interests”, such as restitution, that already widely exists in amendments to the Criminal Law and relevant judicial interpretations should be treated as a type and the related circumstances should be provided for in General Provisions instead of Specific Provisions of the Criminal Law; and theoretical and practical problems relating to meritorious service and special voluntary surrender in bribery cases should be dealt with in an integrated manner by drawing on extraterritorial systems of reducing the criminal responsibility of tainted witnesses.

Key Words: sentencing basis; plea of guilt and acceptance of punishment; corporate criminal compliance; recovery of legal interests; tainted witness system

Author: Liu Renwen, research fellow, CASS Institute of Law; vice chairman, Chinese Criminal Law Society; vice chairman, Chinese Society of Criminology;

Source: 5 (2024) Science of Law (Journal of Northwest University of Political Science and Law).