Criminal Law''''s Application and Perfection of Dealing with the Paroxysmal Public Events
应对突发公共事件的刑法适用与完善

During recent years,an avalanche of emergencies has been a big challenge to our strategic target of constructing a harmonious society.A harmonious society requires that the emergency response mechanism be part of the legal system.As the last resort of social defense,Criminal law plays an extremely important role in responding to emergencies.It is necessary and plausible to apply criminal law to emergency responses.It is necessary because there are always people taking the opportunity of emergency to commit misfeasance and crimes.The society will be in chaos and emergencies will not be responded in time if those people are not punished accordingly.It is plausible because we can find many criminal provisions dealing with emergency responses.When applying criminal law to emergency responses,we should follow three basic principles of punishment.These principles are that the offenders shall be convicted and punished in accordance with law,that the degree of punishment shall be commensurate with the crime committed,and that the law shall be equally applied to anyone who commits a crime.In addition to these basic principles,we should also consider other principles defined in the criminal law system.For example,the offender shall have a reasonably heavy and swift punishment,the offender shall be punished leniently and the offender's human right shall be respected and protected,etc.There are some problems in the existing criminal provisions dealing with emergency responses.First of all,some rules lack necessary criminal clauses,which leads to the incapability of using criminal law to prevent certain crimes when emergency occurs.Secondly,there are conflicts among provisions of criminal law and of other laws under some circumstances,which makes the application of criminal law difficult.Thirdly,the criminal code and the criminal provision in other laws develop at different paces,which further impedes the application of criminal law to emergency responses.We need to improve relevant criminal provisions in the emergency response mechanism,for it is not only the inherent requirement of a rule-of-law society,but also the catalyst for the construction of a harmonious society.