The recent vicious crimes committed by minors have once again triggered the debate on how to set the optimal age of criminal responsibility.According to the current state of criminal leg-islation,such issue should be analyzed from two levels:the practical level and the theoretical level.On the practical level,the Article 17(3)of the Criminal Law should be activated on the condition that the substantive qualifications and procedural qualifications were met.The former refers to the age,accusation and circumstances,while the latter refers to the approval of prosecution from the Su-preme People's Procuratorate.On the theoretical level,we shall introduce the rule of"malice sup-plies the age"which applies to minors between 7 to 12 years,instead of keeping lowering the mini-mum age of criminal responsibility in China.The application of the"malicious supplies the age"rule in China must meet substantive and procedural conditions strictly.The substantive condition of"mal-ice"shall be interpreted in two levels:fact and law.The factual level judgement,which includes the social investigation and psychological assessment,is the premise of the judgement of legal level.While in the legal level judgement,the minors'competence to stand trial must be assessed.Also,different evidence standards shall be applied in different stages of criminalization and decriminaliza-tion,so as to satisfy the procedural conditions for the application of the rule of"malice supplies the age.
Juvenile DelinquencyArticle 17(3)Age of Criminal ResponsibilityRule of Malice Supplies the Age
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