Initial Exploration In Administrative Law Enforcement System Of City Management In China

Since the reform and opening up, there are rapid economic growth and acceleratedurbanization process in China. However, there are many problems such as “duplicatelaw enforcement, overlapping responsibilities, double punishment and disturbing theresidents during law enforcement” in the process of city management andadministrative law enforcement. In order to solve these problems, some supervisoryteams on the city appearance are established in some cities first to solve the problemssuch as moving street peddlers, city appearance and environmental sanitation, aimingto keep city environment clean and the city in order.In Article16of The Law on Administrative Penalty in1997, there were regulations onthe execution of relatively intensive administrative penalty power for the first time.According to this article of law, the State Council determined to carry on experimentsof relatively intensive administrative penalty power in selected places in XuanwuDistrict, Beijing City, practice the model of comprehensive administrative lawenforcement in city management field, and establish the first “city management”institution throughout the country, which uniformly exercises the decentralizedadministrative penalty power related to city management in the institutions originallysuch as industry and commerce, tax administration and environmental protection.Until The Decision of the State Council on Pushing Relatively IntensiveAdministrative Penalty Power Work Further was enacted by the State Council in2002,the comprehensive administrative law enforcement work of city management werecarried out nationwide.In the practice of the comprehensive administrative law enforcement work of citymanagement as experimental unit, there are differences in different places. TheDecision of the State Council on Pushing Relatively Intensive Administrative PenaltyPower Work Further of the State Council is implemented well in some places, andthere are bureaus of comprehensive administrative law enforcement of citymanagement, which are regarded as independent functional departments ofgovernments at the same level and are leaded by the governments directly with the independent performance of function and power according to law as well asundertaking corresponding legal responsibilities. The “co-working” model ofadministrative department of city management and administrative law enforcementdepartment is carried out in some places, in which rebuild the original lawenforcement team of city management, and establish city administration bureau andcity administrative enforcement bureau respectively. There are some places that donot comply with the requirements of The Decision, they establish administrative lawenforcement department of city management under the department with theresponsibility of city management, which carries out administrative law enforcementactivities of city management as secondary unit.There are no uniform administrative laws and regulations as basis in administrativelaw enforcement of city management, however, the basis of law enforcement isdecentralized in other laws, regulations and rules, and only some cities carry out thelocal laws and regulations of city management. According to the requirements in TheDecision, the law enforcement range of comprehensive administrative lawenforcement of city management is6certain contents and1other administrativepenalty power in the field of city management that has been decided by thegovernment of province, autonomous region and municipality directly under thecentral government to be adjusted. In this way, there are lots of weaknesses in lawenforcement departments, such as the law enforcement range is too broad and heavywork.Through several years of practice, the administrative law enforcement system of citymanagement in China is still imperfect. There are confusions in various places on theregulations of law enforcement department in staffing. These departments in someplaces are really given the administrative establishment, while some are regarded asstaffing of government affiliated institutions, in which the administrativeestablishment belongs to department heads and some law enforcement officials, andother law enforcement officials are staffing of government affiliated institutions.Meanwhile, lots of city management and assistant personnel are employed in localadministrative law enforcement departments of city management due to lack of lawenforcement power. These assistant personnel are only contract workers but they participate in frontline law enforcement activities, some of them even enforce the lawrespectively.The problems such as law enforcement misconduct and enforce the law with violenceare common in administrative law enforcement departments of city management,which cause a lot of severe effects, such as damaging legal majesty, lowering theauthority and image of government, and going against social stability and thedevelopment of harmonious society. The main reasons for those problems are: lawenforcement officials lack the concept of administration by law, lack of effectivesupervision, the halfway punishment to illegal behavior, the pressure from executivelevel, resistance to the law with violence and so on. Another main problem in thecomprehensive administrative law enforcement system of city management is lack ofsupervision on the administrative law enforcement departments of city management,which can be mainly seen from the following aspects: the omission of the authorityon the supervision of administrative law enforcement of city management, theimperfect supervision of administrative supervision departments and the defectiveself-supervision of administrative law enforcement departments of city management,the imperfect social supervision system and so on.The perfection of administrative law enforcement system of city management inChina is introduced in this thesis with the focus of the problems in the practice ofcomprehensive administrative law enforcement of city management. The maincontents are: enhance the quality of administrative law enforcement team of citymanagement, strengthen the civilized and legal law enforcement of city managementin China, and improve the supervision on administrative law enforcement of citymanagement in China.