The Mitigation of Culpability for Mistakes Regarding Substantive Illegality in Statutory Offenses : Reflections on the “De Facto Approval” of Unlicensed Mining Activities

法定犯实质违法性认识错误的罪责减免—基于“认可”型无证采矿行为的思考

Under the background of the controversial judgment on the illegal cognition of statutory offense, this paper takes the crime of illegal mining as the entry point and combines with the controversial judicial judgment of the unlicensed mining behavior “recognized” by the administrative organ, aims to explore the impact of the substantial illegal cognition error on the reduction of crime responsibility. Through case analysis and normative interpretation, the research finds that the traditional form of illegality cognition in statutory offense cannot effectively respond to the offender’s misjudgment of the substantial illegality of the legal interest infringement, and the administrative organ's “recognition” may cause the offender to mistakenly believe that his behavior has not infringed the legal interest, which results in the substantial illegality cognition error. The degree of avoidability of such errors should be combined with the source of errors, and the criminal responsibility should be reduced or exempted by layers accordingly. The conclusion of the study argues that the function of the cognition error in substantive illegality should be recognized in the statutory offense, and the conflict between responsibility and judicial justice should be balanced by distinguishing the types and avoidability of the error.

在法定犯违法性认识错误的判断存在争议的背景下，以非法采矿罪为切入点，结合经行政机关“认可”的无证采矿行为的争议性司法判决，探讨该类型无证采矿行为中实质违法性认识错误对罪责减免的影响。通过案例分析与规范解释方法，研究发现，法定犯中传统形式违法性认识无法有效回应行为人对法益侵害实质违法性的误判，行政机关的“认可”可能引发行为人误信其行为未侵害法益，从而产生实质违法性认识错误。此类错误的可避免性程度应结合错误来源综合判断，并据此分层减轻或免除刑事责任。研究结论主张，在法定犯中例外承认实质违法性认识错误的功能，通过区分错误类型及可避免性实现罪责刑相适应，从而平衡责任主义与司法公正的冲突。