“罪行极其严重”的规范解读及其适用——以死刑控制的现实路径为视角

Interpretation and Application to “the Most Heinous Crimes”——From the perspective of realistic approach to death penalty control

"罪行极其严重"是我国死刑适用的基准,但其规定过于原则和抽象,又缺乏实质的内核导致其限制死刑功能的阙如。鉴于其与国际公约对死刑适用"最严重罪行"的标准相距甚远,有必要引入"致命的故意犯罪"作为其实质内核限制死刑的适用范围。据此,我国刑事立法应删除不符的死刑罪名和死刑适用情形;刑事司法应坚持以"致命的故意犯罪"作为死刑适用的底线。

The statement of ＂the most heinous crimes＂ becomes the criteria to the application of the death penalty, but it is too abstract to limit the scope of the death penalty. Because the above criterion goes far from the international Convention on the standard ＂the most serious crimes＂, it is necessary to introduce the statement of ＂the intentional crimes with lethal＂ as substance connotation to control the application of death penalty. According to this, in China the criminal legislation should delete the accusations and the specific conditions of the death penalty which can＇ t meet the above criterion. On the other hand, the criminal justice should persist that the cases sentenced to the death penalty should correspond with the condition of ＂the intentional crimes with lethal＂ which should become the baseline of application of death penalty.