The 300th Lecture of Famous Contemporary Jurists of Jilin University Law School was held on the afternoon of April 21, 2021 in Room 203, Zone D, Jingxin Teaching Building, Central Campus of Jilin University. Professor Huang Xiaoliang from the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University was invited to give a special lecture entitled "Construction and Interpretation of Criminal Law Norms". This lecture was presided over by Professor Li Haiying from the Department of Criminal Law Teaching and Research of Jilin University.
In the speaker's speech session, Professor Huang Xiaoliang gave a wonderful explanation on six aspects: "prerequisite theoretical problems", "the storage of criminal law norms", "the connotation of criminal law norms", "the structure of criminal law norms", "the types of penalty norms" and "the interpretation of criminal law norms". Starting with the application of entropy increase theory in criminal law, he pointed out that criminal law has established criminal law norms, which has become one of the important ways for society to resist entropy increase, and put forward that the meta-theory of criminal law is the theory of criminal law norms. Professor Huang Xiaoliang introduced the independence and subordination of criminal law norms, and pointed out that the focus of the problem lies in how to define criminal law norms. There are monism and dualism in the structure and attribute of criminal law norms. Professor Huang Xiaoliang supported monism and emphasized that criminal law norms have their independence, but they are just referee norms in function, not behavioral norms for ordinary actors. Professor Huang Xiaoliang pointed out that the classification of criminal law norms should be considered from the perspective of the guidance given by criminal law norms to judges, criminal law norms should be regarded as the object of interpretation of criminal law, and constitutional interpretation should be considered in the interpretation method.
In the conversation, Professor Wang Chong, deputy dean of the Law School of Jilin University, raised the question of what kind of science law belongs to, and whether law can directly learn from the research methods of natural science. From the perspective of academic history, he made a supplementary argument on the view that the meta-theory of criminal law is a criminal law norm, and proposed that understanding criminal law norms as referee norms or behavioral norms is essentially an interpretation choice, pointing out that the key to normative interpretation lies in finding social consensus as the premise of interpretation. Professor Zheng Junnan from the Department of Criminal Law Teaching and Research of Jilin University proposed that if criminal law norms are understood as referee norms, it will mean that criminal law is only a norm for post-processing, and how to embody the preventive function of criminal law. He proposed that the independence and subordination of criminal law norms can be judged according to the specific content of crime types, and the object of normative interpretation should be criminal law provisions. Only when the semantic expression of provisions conflicts with a legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime and other interpretation methods have the risk of violating a legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime can constitutional interpretation be applied.
In the interactive session, Professor Huang Xiaoliang responded to the questions raised by the students, such as "How to realize the preventive function of criminal law" and "Relationship between administrative law and criminal law provisions", and further interpreted the entropy increase theory. Finally, Professor Li Haiying summarized the lecture. This lecture ended successfully with warm applause from the students.