食品安全惩罚性赔偿制度的法经济学分析

The Economic Analysis of the Punitive Compensation System Regarding the Food Safety

惩罚性赔偿制度,是法律为了从经济上提高违法犯罪嫌疑人的违法成本,遏制不法行为的发生和蔓延,而授权法院可以判处不法行为人的赔偿数额超出其行为实际造成损害数额的一种损害赔偿制度。从法经济学角度分析,该制度使得违法行为人的违法成本远远超出其违法所得,并警醒潜在违法人远离违法活动。然而,我国2015年4月通过的《食品安全法》第148条中规定的"惩罚性赔偿制度"虽然明确了生产者和经营者的首负责任制,并调整了赔偿基数和赔偿数额,但仍然不是真正意义上的惩罚性赔偿制度,因为其设计的食品安全违法成本远小于其违法所得,且消费者维权成本与维权所得比例极不协调,致使食品安全问题无从解决。所以,有必要从主观要件、赔偿金数额计算标准、相关因素考量、配套制度等方面重新构建一个符合经济合理性的食品安全惩罚性赔偿制度,进而有效发挥惩罚性赔偿的功能。

Punitive compensation system is a special system which authorizes the court to condemn higher forfeiture than the actual damage made by the criminal. This system aims at increasing the cost of illegal behavior and preventing the extending of crime. Stepping from economic analysis of law, the punitive compensation system aims at making the cost of illegal much higher than illegal gains and alerting the potential criminal away from this. However, the punitive compensation system of Article 148 of Food Safety Law provides the first-person responsible system and amends the amount of compensation, but it is still not the so-called punitive compensation system. This is because illegal gains and the profit of maintaining legal rights are still far beyond the punishment in Food Safety Law and the cost of maintaining legal rights, all of which have caused the food safety problem inextricably. Therefore, a model of punitive compensation system from the elements of subjective, and the amount of forfeiture should be established, and thus punitive compensation system could elaborate its virtue.