如何解释“告诉才处理”——以诽谤罪为例

How to Explain the Principle of “Only Handling after Being Informed”—Taking Defamation Crime as an Example

摘要: 诽谤罪但书规定在实务中适用困难且争议较大，其关键原因是作为其前置问题的“告诉才处理”和“自诉”之间的关系并未得到澄清，由此导致在诽谤案件中国家机关的如介入方式成为问题。现有的论证一方面来自立法史，认为将“告诉才处理”解释为“自诉”是法律移植过程中产生的“误读”，二者在性质上是根本不同的，所谓类属关系；另一方面来自诉讼成本分析，认为自诉机制作为一种“财产规则”而非“禁止交易规则”，可以留给双方回旋和解的余地。这两种论证思路无法提供充足的理由支撑“自诉”方案的优越性。因此应当重新建构诽谤犯罪的名誉法益，将其注入规范性和功能性的内涵，从而得出新的解释方案。从实体上来说，将“告诉才处理”解释为可罚性要件能够满足诽谤罪保护法益的要求，从程序上来说，自诉制度的适用应当得到限制。因此，本文提出了对诽谤罪“告诉才处理”的一种新的解释方案。

Abstract: The proviso of criminal defamation is difficult to apply in practice, and there is much controversy surrounding it. The key issue is the relationship between the “handling only when informed” and “private prosecution” as its preliminary issues, which has not been clarified. As a result, it raises questions about how the national authorities in defamation cases should intervene and in what way. The existing argument, on the one hand, comes from the history of legislation, believing that the interpretation of “handling only when informed” as “private prosecution” is a “misreading” generated during the process of legal transplantation, and the two are fundamentally different in nature, with the socalled categorical relationship; on the other hand, from the analysis of litigation costs, it is believed that the private prosecution mechanism, as a “property rule” rather than a “prohibited transaction rule”, can leave room for both parties to negotiate and settle. These two argumentative approaches cannot provide sufficient reasons to support the superiority of the “private prosecution” plan. Therefore, it is necessary to reconstruct the reputation legal interests of defamation crimes, inject them with normative and functional connotations, and thus come up with new interpretation plans. From a substantive perspective, interpreting “handling only when informed” as a punitive requirement can meet the requirements of protecting the legal interests of defamation. From a procedural perspective, the application of the private prosecution system should be limited. Therefore, this article proposes a new interpretation scheme for the defamation crime of “handling only when informed”.