Research On The Punitive Damages System In The Food Safety Law

As the development of people’s living standard, the problem of food safety has been paid more attention by the communities. Food is the basic material condition of people’s life and study. Whether the food for our daily life is safe or not, directly related to the vital interests of ourselves. Ensuring the safety of the food is the precondition of the healthy development of the economic market and the harmonious society, so the problem of food safety is very important. The Food Safety Law has been put into practice on June1,2009. Compared with the Food Sanitation Law, it has emphasized more on the problem of "safety". What’s more, the Food Safety Law has clearly pointed out that the most important and basic value of the law is to ensure people’s health and safety. The application of punitive damages is one of the biggest changes in the Food Safety Law. From all above, we can see that the attitude of the government towards the safety of the food is pretty serious. This article first introduces the definition and functions of the punitive damages system, and analyzes the necessity of introducing this system to the Food Safety Law, then sums up applicable conditions of the punitive damages system, reflects the existing problems through the current situations under the application of the punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law, and at last puts forward some suggestions to improve the application of this system.The paper is composed of four chapters together.The first chapter introduces the basic theory and the necessity of punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law. By discussing the definition and functions of the punitive damages, the article analyzes the punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law from three aspects:legislative background, the value of legislation and the means of the punishment. It lays the foundation for the analysis of the necessity of punitive damages system. The punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law can effectively punish and restrain the illegal activities, maintain the order of the food market, compensate the consumers’ losses, and encourage the communities to actively participate in the practice of the law.The second chapter mainly analyzes the realization mechanism of the punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law. This section discusses the applicable conditions of the punitive damages system from four aspects:the principle part conditions, the object conditions, the subjective conditions and the objective conditions. Then the article sums up the procedures and the calculation mechanism for the application of punitive damages, and thus lays the foundation of reflecting the existing problems in the following part.The third chapter reflects the existing problems, which through the conditions, the procedures and the calculation mechanism for the application of punitive damages system in the Food Safety Law, and then discusses the problems from the three aspects above in details.The fourth chapter puts forward some suggestions to improve the punitive damages system of the Food Safety Law. According to the issues raised in the third chapter, the article puts forward some suggestions from different aspects as follows, such as expanding the scope of the consumers, clearly defining the identified institution and the standard of the food, integrating a variety of factors to consider during the calculation for the punitive damages in The Food Safety Law.