The Application of Fine Punishment from the Crime of Illegal Occupation of Agricultural Land: Taking the Cases of Illegally Occupying Forestland in the Inner Mongolia in 2019

After the large-scale revision of Amendment (Ⅸ) to the Criminal Law, the application of unlimited fine system is more extensive, and how to determine the amount of fine has caused a considerable debate. Based on the analysis of 348 cases of illegal occupation of forestland in the Inner Mongolia in 2019, it is found that there are many problems in these cases, such as more applications of probation, large fluctuation of the amount of fine, large discretion of judges and different sentencing standards. In view of the lack of sentencing standards and the judicial situation in which judges have different tendencies in their discretion, this paper proposes to refine the sentencing standards of unlimited fine at different levels by means of judicial interpretation and guiding cases, and to reasonably apply the probation in combination with auxiliary measures.