The Research On Overlaps Between Administrative And Criminal Authority In Public Security Organs

The famous French enlightenment thinker and jurist Montesquieu stated in his masterpiece The Spirit of the Laws,"Power is easily abused by whoever commands it." In terms of the legalization of modern western world, the theory of the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers produced positive and far-reaching influence on many countries. Functional organizations in Common law countries are independent and mutually restricted at the same time, and their powers are very specific. In China, under the background of managing state affairs according to the law and building legal socialistic countries, many scholars offer many opinions on our legal system. They suggest that the public security organs, the procuratorial organs and the judicial organs should be independent, each doing his own job, but little research has done as for the powers of some internal judicial organizations.As key components of the state judicial power, public security organs, qualified by law, have great responsibility in the state administrative management. It’s widely accepted that limited authority, which is necessary to protect citizens’rights, will voilate citizens’legal rights and obstruct the legalization of our country, if abused or exceeded. Therefore, this paper aims to study on the administrative and criminal powers of the public security organ, and resolve problems like misapplication of laws, relief access being obstructed and civil rights being harmed. The author first stated the definition of administrative and criminal powers of the police system, then its foundation, scope and the division standard. Next, the author introduced the police system of American and some European countries as well as Hong Kong in China, and presented the situation where the powers of public security organs were abused. Reasons such as legislation being not perfect, leaked system and unlimited discretion have been thoroughly analysed.Based on the research above, the author discussed the possibility of applying the Anglo-American law system model under the current system. The theory of separation of three powers in the Western world is based on the national political system, the development of democracy, the economic level and the traditional culture of those countries. In our current system, the functional departments have their own responsibilities but are not separated yet, and as for some internal departments, there are some overlapping parts of their powers. Faced with the realistic restriction, the author puts forward the concept of moderate division. We should improve our legislation, avoid the conflicts and leaks of laws, promote the reform, define the duties and powers of the police, and regulate the discretion. At last, the author also hopes that this paper can draw more attentions to the problem of authority cross in the police organization.