Fine powder has the following characteristics:
(1) Fines, like confiscation of property, are compulsory property punishment measures taken by the people's courts against criminals.
(2) According to the principle of taking responsibility and opposing combined punishment for several crimes in China's criminal law, fines, like confiscation of property, can only enforce all the property of criminals, but not all the property of criminals' families or later.
(3) The scope of fines can only be to force criminals to pay a certain amount of money owned by individuals. If there is no money, measures can be taken to seal up, detain, freeze, sell or auction all their legal property, and the proceeds from the sale or auction can be used to offset the fine.
(4) The payment of the fine is related to the execution of the penalty after the court decision takes effect. Discretion principle of fine
Article 52 of the Criminal Law stipulates: "When imposing a fine, the amount of the fine shall be determined according to the circumstances of the crime." According to this article, the amount of fines should be commensurate with the circumstances of the crime. In other words, if the circumstances of the crime are serious, the fine amount should be more; If the circumstances of the crime are minor, the amount of fines should be small, which is the concrete embodiment of the principle of balance between crime and punishment in the discretion of fines. Whether the criminal's ability to pay the fine should be considered when determining the amount of the fine is not clearly stipulated in the Criminal Law, but Article 2 of the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Property Punishment issued by the Supreme People's Court on June 5438+0 15, 2002 stipulates: "The people's court shall impose a fine according to the amount of illegal gains, the size of losses caused and other criminal circumstances, and consider the criminal's ability to pay the fine." It can be seen that in judicial practice, the ability of criminals to pay fines should be considered from the perspective of facilitating the execution of judgments.
The fine system is only applicable to crimes specified in the criminal law. If there are no clear provisions in the law, criminals cannot be fined, nor can fines be used instead of punishment.