论“恶意补足年龄”规则之本土化适用

The Localization of the Rules of Malicious Complement of Age

摘要: 近期，未成年恶性犯罪事件频发，并且呈现出低龄化犯罪的趋势，是否应当再次下调刑事责任年龄的话题再一次引发了大量的讨论。2021年出台的《刑法修正案(十一)》在严格条件限定下个别下调了刑事责任年龄，对该问题进行了回应。但面对复杂的未成年人犯罪，现行刑事责任年龄条款依旧有一刀切之嫌，并未终止未成年恶性犯罪发生时舆论针对该问题的热议。未成年人恶性犯罪频发、低龄化趋势问题亟待解决，而维持或一味下调刑事责任年龄并不是对该条款的最佳调整。“恶意补足年龄”规则发生于英国，历史渊源悠久。通过借鉴引入英美盛行的“恶意补足年龄”规则并且对其加以本土化的改造，能够一定程度上对我国现行的刑事责任年龄制度进行补充，提高该条款的灵活性。

Abstract: Recently, juvenile vicious crimes have occurred frequently, and there is a trend of crimes at a younger age. Whether the criminal responsibility age should be lowered once again has aroused a lot of discussion. The Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China has responded to this problem by individually lowering the age of criminal responsibility under strict conditions. However, in the face of complex juvenile crimes, the current age of criminal responsibility clause is still a blanket of suspicion, and has not stopped the public opinion on this issue when juvenile delinquency occurs. It is urgent to solve the problem of frequent juvenile de-linquency and the trend of younger age. Maintaining or blindly lowering the age of criminal respon-sibility is not the best adjustment to this clause. The rules of malicious complement of age, which originated in the UK, have a long history. It can supplement the current system of the age of crimi-nal responsibility to some extent; improve the flexibility of this clause by referring to the prevailing rules of “The Rules of Malicious Complement of Age” in UK and US and the local reform of it.