The Legal Integration of Criminal Policy Sentencing Norms from the Perspective of Urging Voluntary Surrender Announcements

The announcements urging voluntary surrender, as a specific criminal policy tool in special governance actions, serve both the functions of policy mobilization and normative guidance, but face difficulties in judicial practice due to unclear normative status and implicit discretion. Essentially, these announcements are a concrete expression of the criminal policy of “tempering justice with mercy” and belong to policy-based sentencing guidance, with their normative positioning varying slightly depending on the issuing authority. Announcements at the central level should be defined as national policy guideline norms, which are refinements of existing sentencing standards and should serve as a basis for sentencing discretion; at the local level, they act as execution-oriented detailed reference norms, serving as a reiteration and refinement of the central announcements' content, but cannot independently serve as a basis for sentencing discretion and can only be used as a reference; at the individual case level, they constitute policy commitments constrained by the principle of legitimate expectation. The specific connotations of these policy-based sentencing norms need to be understood within the current sentencing norm system, so as to ensure coordination between the two. Specifically: “Surrender within a time limit” is not an independent sentencing circumstance, but a further policy refinement of the statutory leniency for voluntary surrender; “strict in accordance with the law” is a reverse restriction and contraction on the scope of leniency for voluntary surrender, rather than the creation of an extra-legal aggravating circumstance; the policy promise that “punishment can be reduced” should be interpreted as a strong incentive guidance of “generally reduce, exceptions only mitigate lightly.” Through these legal interpretations, policy-based sentencing norms are incorporated into a system of discretionary reasoning that is predictable and verifiable, achieving a unity of governance effectiveness and the rule of law principle.