重利罪之保護法益與制裁結構──以信用重利為例

The Protected Legal Interest of Usury and Structure of Punishment: A Case Study of the Credit Lender

在我國傳統刑法文獻中，重利罪向來都算不上討論的重點。早期文獻在分析重利行為的時候，鮮少去追問利息或者利率的性質，或者為什麼在一定程度之內收取利息不為法律所禁止的原因。這個問題對於重利罪的處罰之所以重要，是因為：畢竟法律只禁止收取重利，但卻沒有完全禁止收取利息的行為。想要解答上述的問題，進一步地去瞭解重利罪的歷史，以及經濟學文獻對於利息的成因的說明，就顯得十分必要。事實上，在人類文明發展的進程中，放貸取利的行為其實有著悠久的歷史。重利罪的存在目的，在於維繫「公平價格」與「禁止剝削」。據此可以進一步推論得知的是，重利罪的保護法益應該是被害人的整體財產。從經濟學理論對於利息與利率分析的結果可知，公平價格是一個極為抽象的概念，以抽象危險犯的方式來設計重利罪的構成要件，因此會是一種合理的作法。考慮到財產法益與抽象危險犯的特性，在信用重利類型的案件中，因此有設定最低處罰界線的必要。在劃定利率顯不相當的界線時，德國文獻中的兩種計算方式，或可供作我國實務未來參考之用。

In traditional Taiwanese legal literature, usury has never been a research priority for a long time. The analysis of the prohibition against usury in the earlier text rarely asked what the interest really is or where the interest rate came from, or why it is allowed by law to take interest in a certain amount. This question is important for punishment of usury, because although criminal law prohibits usury, still tolerates interest-taking. In order to find out the answer to the above question, it is essential to go a step further in discovering and investigating the history of the prohibition of usury and the explanations of the origins of interest and interest rates in economic literature. In fact, from the history of the prohibition against usury, we can know that interest-taking has had a long history in the process of human civilization development. The Purpose of the prohibition against usury is to keep the fair price and to prohibit the exploitation. Therefore, it can be concluded that the protected Legal interest is the prop-erty of the victim in the case of usury. The analysis of the economic literature on interest and interest rates shows that the concept of the fair price is extremely abstract. So drafting the offence with the abstract strict liability is a reasonable measure. In consideration of the feature of the property and the abstract strict liability offense, the minimum clause is necessarily to be used in the case of the credit lender. When delimiting the conspicuous disproportion, two German calculation methods may for Taiwanese practice possibly be used as a good reference.