In the Putian murder case, not only was the dilemma of justice widely discussed, but the reward notice issued by the Putian Pinghai Town Government was also controversial. The announcement reads:
"Please pay attention to the abnormal situation in the surrounding area, find traces of entry, clothing, food squandered, dodging figures and suspicious sounds, etc., after investigation, there is a major help to solve the case, a one-time reward of 20,000 yuan will be given."
"If an unknown body is found, it will be a one-time reward of 50,000 yuan if it is proved to be Ou Mouzhong's body."
"Twenty thousand alive, fifty thousand dead."
This is the meaning conveyed in the bounty notice, which also stirs up thousands of waves, and many people question:
The bounty is issued by the town government, does the town government have this qualification?
Why are corpses worth more than living people?
These are two issues of concern.
Because this relates to two important legal aspects involved in the bounty:
"Eligibility of Bounty Announcements" and "Regulations on Bounty Writing".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13">01</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" is it appropriate for the town government to issue a bounty >? </h1>
First, let's talk about the "Eligibility of The Bounty Announcement".
In people's minds, it is generally the public security organs that issue reward announcements, not the government.
So is the Pinghai Town Government eligible to carry out the reward as the main qualification to issue a reward announcement?
In fact, article 279 of the Provisions on procedures for public security organs in handling criminal cases provides:
From the perspective of literal interpretation, the regulations only state that "with the approval of the responsible person of the public security organ at or above the county level, a reward notice may be issued", but does not say "which entities may issue a reward notice".
For public power, the law has an authorization to do so.
The "Goddess of Justice", Justita /Iustitia, whose name was changed from the legal "jus". One hand holds the balance, which represents a fair and just trial; the other holds a sword, which represents the just force of sanctioning criminals; and the blindfold of the eyes represents the spirit of equality, objectivity, and the rule of law that does not favoritism.
Image source: unsplash
Therefore, from this point of view, people's governments, procuratorates, courts, judicial bureaus, and other units, with the approval of the responsible persons of public security organs at or above the county level, that is, after accepting the authorization of the law, can issue a reward notice.
However, the lack of the definition of the main scope can also be regarded as the ambiguity of the formulation of regulations.
If the interpretation is supplemented from the perspective of system interpretation, Article 1 of the Provisions on the Procedures for Handling Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs clearly stipulates that the original intention of the formulation is:
From this point of view, the lack of the definition of subjects in article 279 can also be understood as the default subject, that is, the public security organs.
Thus, a problem arises here: there is a contradiction in the interpretation of the law.
Further explanation of the purpose of the legislation, then, is necessary.
The notice of rewarding criminal suspects is a criminal reward involving the personal information and personal dignity of criminal suspects, and the reward notice is open to the whole society.
Such bounty offerings should not be an individual's "private right." The power to reward criminal suspects is actually a public power and should be part of the investigative power.
Only when the legal interests are infringed, can public power be used to prosecute crimes.
In a broad sense, the people's government is an organ of public power, according to the view of social contract theory, government power comes from the transfer of citizens' rights, so the government has the public power to prosecute crimes and protect legal interests from infringement.
Judging from this expanded interpretation, the people's government can issue a notice of rewarding suspects.
But in a narrow sense, who can be the subject of the bounty notice?
As mentioned above, if the reward notice involves the human rights of suspects, then the subject of the notice should only be a public power organ with legal benefit protection functions, and according to the narrow interpretation of the text, it should also be issued by the public security organ.
Of course, if it is a notice that is simply a reward for case leads, some scholars believe that private individuals can also be released.
This privately released bounty has the nature of a civil bounty. If it is a civil reward, it can be regarded as a contract, which only involves the relationship of rights and obligations.
Therefore, although the pinghai town government's act of issuing a reward announcement cannot be regarded as an administrative violation, the public power should maintain a humble and restrained posture, and should not take the initiative to extend its tentacles into the ambiguity of legal norms.
Because in the final analysis, the influence of public power is so great that it is difficult to be well controlled.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="40" > corpse is more expensive, is it reasonable? </h1>
After talking about the qualification of the subject, let's explore the writing specifications of this reward notice.
On October 10, the Xiuyu Branch of the Putian Municipal Public Security Bureau issued a co-investigation notice, which did not specify the amount of the reward, but only said that it would provide rewards for those who provided clues to catch suspects.
In a notice issued by the Pinghai town government on October 12, it said that "if the masses find that there are major clues to help solve the case, they will be rewarded with a one-time reward of 20,000 yuan; if an unknown body is found, it will be found to be Ou Mouzhong's body, and a one-time reward of 50,000 yuan will be given."
As netizens said, this announcement at first glance, "like a Western reward for people's heads."
The bounty order is a common element of Westerns, and the picture shows stills from the movie "The Ballad of Buster Scrugers".
Image source: Douban
In this reward notice, is the way the amount of the reward is regulated?
In fact, the question of "whether to regulate" is difficult to answer directly, because Article 279 of the Provisions on the Procedures of Public Security Organs in Handling Criminal Cases only stipulates that the reward notice should state the basic information of the reward recipient and the amount of the reward.
The criminal reward itself is a supplement to the investigative means, soliciting clues from the whole society. There are also some vague problems with the nature of criminal rewards themselves, so there is no detailed provision for criminal rewards in the statute.
So, what kind of criteria should be adopted for the calculation of bounties? Are criminal bounties really "paying for heads"?
Yu Huilin and Yu Shaoshan proposed in "On the Perfection of China's Criminal System - From the Perspective of Legal Economics" that from the perspective of legal economics, the bounty of criminal rewards should be composed of: "saved investigation costs" + "saved to appease the people," "cost of maintaining public order" + "deterrence of crime, reduction of criminal behavior", and several aspects of the benefits.
It can be seen that criminal rewards are an act of cooperating with society in investigation and saving judicial costs.
In this bounty, the bounty for finding the body is higher, and if not from a conspiracy theory perspective, the reason for doing so may be:
Is finding a body more costly than providing a major clue?
Or is it more costly to maintain law and order?
Or is it better to deter crime?
No amount of calculations seems to be possible to conclude that a higher reward should be awarded for finding the suspect's body.
Generally speaking, the police issue a bounty notice and determine the amount of the bounty as a different amount, which can be divided into: providing minor help in solving the case, providing major clues, and helping to arrest the suspect.
For some rare cases, such as the possibility of criminal suspects committing suicide, involving professional fields such as salvage and mountain searching, it may also be possible to list the bounty for finding the suspect's body, but in general, the amount will be lower.
Xiuyan County Bounty Announcement (Partial).
In addition, one of the functions of the reward notice is to mobilize social enthusiasm to investigate crimes, but the Reward Notice of the Pinghai Town Government not only makes people feel confused after reading, but even makes people feel resistant. There are also many irregularities in the writing and tone of official documents.
In order to ensure the rigor of criminal investigation, the general reward notice will use "provide clues" and "assist in capture", but this reward notice uses expressions such as "criminal suspect Ou Mouzhong fled the scene after committing the crime", which completely does not respect the basic principle of "without trial, the suspect must not be confirmed as a criminal", and also uses unnecessary expressions such as "one-time payment", "reverse inspection of own monitoring" and "attention to surrounding abnormal situations", which can be described as very imprecise.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="64" > bounty and wanted, what is the difference? </h1>
Combined with the above two points of analysis, it can be concluded that the Reward Behavior of the Pinghai Town Government, although it cannot be said to be illegal, is an inappropriate behavior in form and substance, and even some netizens said that this is "the government encourages killing".
If we imagine an extreme situation, if someone really kills a suspect in order to get an extra reward of 30,000 yuan, is this act illegal?
The answer is definitely illegal.
One of the foundations of the rule of law concept is that individuals are not allowed to exercise judicial power on behalf of the State. This form, if allowed in law, would collapse the foundations of the judicial system: the greatest power of the state apparatus is the power to legally kill.
It should be recognized that there is an essential difference between killing a wanted criminal and legitimate defense, which is part of self-reliance and protection of legal interests, and that the suspect's escape does not meet the conditions for "unlawful infringement" and "ongoing" of legitimate defense.
So if it is a self-inflicted twist and coercive measures are taken against the suspect, how should it be defined?
Similarly, suspects enjoy human rights without conviction and enjoy the same human rights as all people, citizens can provide clues to the arrest of the police, and if other measures are to be taken, the basic human rights of suspects cannot be violated in principle.
However, Article 13 of China's Criminal Law stipulates that "if the circumstances are obvious and minor, the harm is not great, it is not considered a crime", and Article 21 stipulates an emergency risk avoidance system that "in order to protect the State, the public interest, the person, property and other rights of the person or others from the ongoing danger, the emergency hedging act that has to be taken, causing damage, shall not bear criminal responsibility".
Therefore, in principle, coercive measures should not be used against fugitive suspects, and the corresponding legal requirements need to be met in certain circumstances.
So, is there a situation where it can be twisted?
This requires discerning the difference between a "bounty" and a "wanted".
Article 155 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides:
Article 84 provides:
Paragraph 3 of Article 150 provides:
Paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Article 298 provide:
With so many laws enumerated, it can be found that:
First, a wanted person exists as a coercive measure under the Code of Criminal Procedure and has legal consequences for a wanted person.
Second, the purpose of the wanted is to arrest the suspect, while the purpose of the bounty is most of the time to collect clues.
Third, the authority issuing the wanted warrant can only be the public security organ.
In addition, the arrest will also cause other legal consequences, such as the second paragraph of article 56 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Public Security Administration Punishments:
Article 22 of the Regulations on the Praise of Martyrs provides:
Article 50 of the Regulations on Preferential Treatment of Pensions for Military Personnel stipulates:
If you delve deeper into the legal relationship here, you will find that the bounty, as a form of contract, is an offer made to an unspecified majority.
There are also many scholars who believe that criminal rewards can also be seen as a unilateral legal act, Fang Xiaomin and Huang Lihua pointed out in the article "Determination of the Legal Nature of Criminal Rewards - Concurrent Evaluation and the Distinction of Civil Rewards":
"From the point of view of the mode of initiation, a criminal reward is an ex officio administrative act as a unilateral legal act that takes legal effect as soon as it is issued."
The wanted person is a part of the investigative power in legislation and a part of the coercive measures in criminal proceedings, which have strict subject and procedural restrictions and have corresponding legal consequences.
Although in substantive law, punishing crimes and upholding justice is our eternal pursuit, in accordance with procedural justice, the protection of the human rights of criminal suspects and the requirements for procedural dueness also reflect the concept of modern justice.
Here there should be no bias in the pursuit of justice on either side, and the humility of public power should always be maintained.