On the Legal Boundary between Justifiable Defense and Excessive Defense

There is a certain disconnection between the legislative provisions and the judicial application of justifiable defense system, so correctly activating and exercising the right of defense in accordance with the law has become a major pain point of the current judicial policies. In properly solving the judicial disputes between justifiable defense and excessive defense, it is necessary to start from the basic standpoint of giving priority to defense right, establish a favorable interpretation position and value orientation of defenders, appropriately relax the limitation of defense, and give necessary “tolerance” to excessive defense. Meanwhile, we should also explore the boundaries of excessive defense based on the legitimacy of defense, from the perspectives of the opposition between right and evil and the balance between legal and illegal. At the normative level, it is necessary to courageously get rid of all kinds of judicial misconceptions such as “results-only theory”, and make a comprehensive judgment on the two core elements of obviously exceeding the necessary limits and causing serious consequences from the perspective of behavior and results and based on the unity of subjectivity and objectivity, so as to achieve individual justice. Besides, there is no room for discussion of excessive defense in special defense.