行政处罚裁量基准的法治化及其限度——评新修订的《行政处罚法》第34条

The Legalization of Administrative Penalty Discretion Benchmark and Its Limit—— Comment on Article 34 of the Administrative Punishment Law

在我国,在经历了十余年的地方实践探索和积累之后,新修订的《行政处罚法》第34条首次将行政处罚裁量基准纳入法治轨道,以中央立法形式对裁量基准的设定义务和公开义务作出明确规定,及时回应了理论与实务界的诸多争议,具有重大的理论与实践意义。在设定义务上,与已有地方立法不同,新修订的《行政处罚法》基于行政处罚事务的复杂性考量,并未作强制性规定,而是采用了"可以"的立法表述。对此,需要借鉴比较法上的经验,将其解释为一种"法定的努力义务",要求行政机关必须就不制定裁量基准作出理由说明。在公开义务上,新法基于控制和规范行政处罚权的需要,要求所有裁量基准都必须对外公开,这是对已有地方立法文本的吸收,符合当下政府信息公开的基本要求。但是,这种绝对化的处理,极有可能损及裁量基准的设定义务。对此,既需要从执法政策上做更为有力的推进,也需要予以强力的政治保障。

In China, after more than ten years of local practice exploration and accumulation, for the first time, Article 34 of the newly amended Administrative Punishment Law brings the administrative penalty discretion benchmark into the legal track. In the form of central legislation, the enactment and disclosure obligations of discretion benchmarks are clearly defined to respond to many disputes in theory and practice in time, which has great theoretical and practical significance. Based on the complexity of administrative punishment matters, there is no mandatory provision for the enactment obligation but only a "may" legislative expression in the new Administrative Punishment Law, which is different from previous local legislation. To this end, we may learn from comparative law experience and interpret it as a "statutory duty of effort ". The Administrative organs must be required to provide reasons for not setting discretionary benchmarks. In terms of disclosure obligations, the new law is based on the necessity to control and regulate the administrative punishment authority, which requires all discretionary benchmarks to be open to the public. This is an absorption of existing local legislation, and is in line with the current basic requirements of government information disclosure. However, this absolute treatment is likely to undermine the obligation of enactment.In this regard, it is necessary to push forward the law enforcement policy more forcefully, and also provide political guarantee.