Abstract:On March 10, 2024, a case of intentional homicide involving three minors under the age of 14 occurred in Handan City, which sparked widespread public concern and strong reactions. The focus of public discontent shifted from no penalty for minors to lenient penalty for minors and no death penalty for minors. Public opinion has revealed the value conflicts inherent in the minimum age of criminal responsibility when addressing youth delinquency, demanding profound scholarly examination and an account of Chinas distinctive historical and cultural heritage. Theoretically, the establishment of a criminal responsibility age is a legal fiction that necessarily results in the contradiction between identity and difference. Public dissatisfaction with lenient penalty for minors and no death penalty for minors largely stems from the yearning for retribution. However, retributive justice is fundamentally at odds with the principle of special protection for minors. Furthermore, the inclination of public sentiment towards amending the law may violate the modesty principle of criminal law. The systems challenge is to maintain a balanced allocation of punishment quantity to guarantee the modesty principle of criminal law. Throughout Chinese history, the ethos of caring for the young has deep historical roots and has influenced ancient Chinese legislation. In terms of institutional design, since the Han Dynasty, the Chinese legal tradition has displayed a relatively flexible approach to determining the criminal responsibility age, which, to some extent, mitigates the shortcomings of legal fiction. Moreover, since the Tang Dynasty, China has adopted the mode of listing crimes + defining statutory penalties, which has the advantages of systematization and precision and can provide insights for future improvements to Chinas minimum criminal age system. In terms of practice, the construction of the minimum criminal age system can be advanced along the following pathways: First, it is imperative to shift from an overly rigid age-only criterion to a more flexible legislative model. Second, current legislation exhibits unequal punishment for similar cases, the punishment disparity due to age differences should be minimized as much as practicable to ensure proportionality. Simultaneously, it is vital to firmly establish the stance of special protection for minors, relax constraints on juvenile probation, and further refine the specialized correctional education system to align seamlessly with criminal law. Third, a systematic approach to crime classification should be embraced, using the maximum statutory sentence as a criterion for such classification. This would create a more robust legal framework and guard against an unwarranted broadening of the scope of punishment.

Abstract:The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology and the occurrence of automatic driving accidents have led to a discussion on the issue of criminal liability in automatic driving accidents, involving the subject of criminal liability, the nature of the crime of negligence, and the duty of care, which is worthy of in-depth study. Automatic driving technology can be classified as simple automation, partial automation, high automation, and full automation. In the case of simple automation and partial automation, the criminal liability for traffic accidents involving self-driving cars is not different from that of ordinary traffic accidents, and there is no need for a separate discussion. In the case of high automation and full automation, the driver of a self-driving car becomes a user of the product because he is restricted from participating in driving operations. As a weak artificial intelligence product, self-driving cars cannot become the subject of criminal liability. Users of self-driving cars are not completely exempt from road traffic safety responsibilities. The developer of self-driving cars needs to bear the criminal liability of the product, and the criminal liability of the product in this case includes the responsibility for road traffic safety. Under China’s criminal law system, negligence and intent are two parallel subjective psychological attitudes, and the new negligence theory’s understanding of negligence crime does not conform to the existing criminal law provisions. The crime of negligence is not an abstract foreseeable possibility as the old negligence theory suggests. The overconfident negligence in China’s criminal law is the actor’s failure to perform the obligation to avoid the result when he foresees the result, and the negligence is the actor’s failure to perform the obligation to foresee the result when there is a possibility of foreseeing. In an automatic driving accident, if the user violates the obligation to cooperate with and ensure the normal operation of the self-driving system, resulting in the occurrence of harmful results, the crime of negligence is established. If the user is not obligated to operate, he or she is not subject to criminal liability. The user’s duty of care is derived from the precedent law, but not all the obligations stipulated in the precedent law can become the duty of care for negligence crimes. If the developer violates the obligation to foresee the consequences of ensuring road traffic safety, resulting in the occurrence of harmful results, it needs to bear the responsibility for the accident. The self-driving system has not been out of the control of the developer after it has been put into use, so the nature of product liability borne by the developer of the self-driving car is different from that of the ordinary car developer, and the liability for the accident of the original car driver is transferred to the developer. Although the obligation to foresee the results is subjective, in the process of actually judging whether the developer has violated the obligation to foresee the results, a relatively objective standard is required as a reference, that is, the scientific and technological capabilities at the time of the development of the self-driving car. The existence of algorithmic black boxes in automatic driving systems should not be a reason to deny the developer’s obligation to foresee or avoid results.