Social Sciences in China

Vol. 40, No. 3, 2019

 

Legislation on the New Types of Cybercrime and Its Application

(Abstract)

 

Pi Yong

 

The new types of cybercrime have different features from traditional “cumulative crimes.” The application of the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law has run into difficulties, and the relevant theoretical explanations of substantive preparatory crime and being an accomplice in crime find it hard to achieve self-consistency. Legislation on the new types of cybercrime is a legitimate response to recent changes in this area. Utilizing the particular techniques of cybercrime and the circumstantial requirement of limiting the amount of criminal harm is the key to satisfying the conditions for offences warranting criminal punishment. The harmfulness of the new types of cybercrime is not great; the law’s circumstantial requirements are flexible, and the criteria for judicial application are unclear, so the law’s provisions are seldom invoked and the sphere of criminal activity is unduly expanded. In order to give full play to the effectiveness of this legislation, we should formulate reasonable judicial rules that accord with the constitution of cybercrimes, narrow down the constituent elements of such crimes in a reasonable way, and categorize and limit the interpretation of circumstantial requirements.

 

Keywords: new types of cybercrime, cumulative constitution of crime, substantive preparation offense, treating aiding behavior as behavior of a principal, neutral aiding behavior