“罪行极其严重”的刑法教义学解读——以死刑限制论刑事政策演绎为视角

Interpretation of"Extremely Serious Crime"——From the Perspective of the Interpretation of Criminal Policy on the limitation of Death Penalty

随着死刑限制论刑事政策的提出和不断发展,坚持“少杀、慎杀”,严格限制与削减死刑的适用,确保社会和谐稳定,已成为我国理论界和实务界的共识。除出台各种程序性保障举措外,我国刑法修正案还将“死刑只适用于罪大恶极的犯罪分子”的规定进一步修改为“死刑只适用罪行极其严重的犯罪分子”,以此来契合死刑限制论的刑法政策。但是刑法条文对“罪行极其严重”的立法表述过于抽象模糊,使得司法者对于“罪行极其严重”的认定有极大的自由裁量权,同案不同判的局面时有出现。为了使“罪行极其严重”发挥死刑限制的功效,有必要在刑法教义学的框架内对其进行合理解读,明确“罪行极其严重”的认定标准和考量因素,使之达到政治效果、法律效果和社会效果的统一。

With the proposal and continuous development of the criminal policy of death penalty restriction theory,it has become the consensus of the theoretical and practical circles in China to adhere to the principle of"less killing,careful killing",strictly limiting and reducing the application of death penalty,and ensuring social harmony and stability.In addition to introducing various procedural safeguard measures,China's criminal law amendment further revised the provision that"death penalty is only applicable to criminals with serious crimes"to"death penalty only applies to criminals with extremely serious crimes",so as to conform to the criminal policy of death penalty restriction theory.However,the legislative expression of"extremely serious crime"in the criminal law is too abstract and vague,which makes the judiciary have great discretion in the determination of"extremely serious crime",and the situation of different judgments in the same case occurs from time to time.In order to make the"extremely serious crime"play a role in the restriction of death penalty,it is necessary to make a reasonable interpretation of it within the framework of criminal dogmatics,and clarify the identification criteria and considerations of"extremely serious crime",so as to achieve the unity of political effect,legal effect and social effect.