未成年人刑事责任年龄:完整解读《刑法》第17条

The Age of Juveniles for Taking Criminal Responsibility:A Complete Interpretation of Article 17 in The Criminal Law of the PRC

调整未成年人承担刑事责任的法定年龄,是我国未成年人刑法改革的可行举措。个案中未成年人的罪行达到何等程度可定罪,完整理解我国现行《刑法》第17条就尤为重要。其中,罪行种类量定了客观危害的严重性,成为对未成年行为人追究刑事责任的一般基准;而不同年龄阶段测查未成年行为人的刑事责任能力,可谓判定其负刑事责任与否的特定依据。全面理解该条还需考虑我国的国际人权义务,以便立足国情贯彻儿童最大利益的政策精神。尤其是,在全面推进依法治国的新时代,我国应在实践中适度从严从紧控制罪行种类标准与不同年龄责任能力等法律标尺,并对非必须适用刑罚的未成年人在尺度上适当放宽,以依法把实际受追诉或定罪的未成年人数量尽量降至最低。

Adjusting the legal age for juveniles to bear criminal responsibility is a feasible measure for the reform of juvenile criminal law in China.In order to know to what extent the crimes committed by juveniles in the case can be convicted by law,a complete understanding of Article 17 of The Criminal Law of the PRC is particularly important.Among them,the type of crime indicates the seriousness of the objective harm and becomes the general benchmark for investigating the criminal responsibility of the underage actor,while testing the criminal responsibility capacity of the minor actor in different age stages can be described as the specific basis to determine whether he is criminally responsible or not.A full understanding of Article 17 also needs to take into account our international human rights obligations in order to implement the policy spirit of protecting juveniles’best interests based on Chinese national conditions.In particular,in the new era of comprehensively promoting the rule of law,the identification of standards for the types of crimes and different age stages should be appropriately strictly controlled in judicial practice.The use of standards for juveniles’offences,if unnecessary for criminal punishments,should also be appropriately relaxed,and the number of juveniles who are actually prosecuted by the prosecution or convicted by courts should be reduced to the minimum in accordance with the law.