The Criminal Law Amendment (XI) revised the provisions of the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits, and changed the relatively fixed fine penalty in the first paragraph into an unlimited fine penalty; The third tier of statutory punishment is added, that is, "if the amount is especially huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years and shall also be fined"; The provisions on lenient punishment in the third paragraph have also been added, that is, "those who have committed the acts mentioned in the preceding two paragraphs and actively return the stolen goods and compensation before initiating public prosecution to reduce the occurrence of damage results can be given a lighter or mitigated punishment". In judicial practice, for the defendant in the case of illegal absorption of public deposits before the amendment (11) of the Criminal Law, if the amount of crime is within the standard of the first or second statutory amount of punishment, according to the principle of "from the old to the lighter", whether the provisions of the first paragraph of the old law can be applied at the same time as the provisions of the third paragraph of the new law, and whether the defendant can be given a lighter or mitigated punishment is controversial. The first point of view is that the principle of both the old and the new criminal law should be applied as a whole. According to this principle, whether the old law or the new law should be applied, all the provisions of the old law or the new law should be applied as a whole, and the new and old criminal law should not be cross-applied. This view can be called "the theory of overall applicability". The second point of view is that the selection and application of the specific provisions of the criminal law is determined by the principle of both the old and the lighter. If different provisions of the criminal law are revised in the case trial, the old law or the new law can be selected according to the principle of both the old and the lighter. Therefore, the new and old criminal laws can be cross-applied, for example, the new law can be applied when determining the level of the legal penalty, and the old law can be applied when determining the circumstances of voluntary surrender. However, this cross-application should take the provisions of the criminal law as the minimum unit. Some provisions of the criminal law should not apply to the old law, while some provisions of the criminal law should apply to the new law. This view can be called "the theory of cross application of provisions". The third point of view is that, starting from the principle of benefiting the defendant, the new and old criminal laws can also be cross-applied in the same article. Different understandings of this issue sometimes have a decisive impact on the sentencing of the defendant in judicial practice, so it is very necessary to clarify it. The author is inclined to the third point of view, that is, the new and old criminal laws can also be cross-applied within the same article. The main reasons are as follows: First, there are obvious defects in the "theory of overall application". "The theory of overall application" generally emphasizes that the weight of the new and old criminal laws needs to be compared as a whole, that is, for a certain act, it should be evaluated as a whole according to the new and old criminal laws, including the use of general provisions and other comprehensive evaluation before comparing the weight. This will inevitably lead the comparison of the severity of the new and old criminal laws to take the punishment as the benchmark. This comparison lacks objectivity and operability, and also directly violates the provision in Article 1 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Article 12 of the Criminal Law that the "lighter punishment" is the comparison of legal punishment. To put it a step further, even if the "theory of overall application" can accept the new and old criminal law that is applied as a whole after the comparison of the statutory punishment, it will also cause the problem pointed out by the "theory of overall application", that is, "only comparing the weight of the statutory punishment will lead to the selection of the applicable law based on this standard, and the actual sentencing result will be heavier after considering factors such as surrender and meritorious service, and