A Study On The Ripeness Doctrine In American Administrative Litigation

In administrative proceedings,not any administrative act can be reviewed by the court,even if the administrative acts within the scope of the court’s,so long as the act is still in middle or preparatory stage,did not have a real impact,the time is still not ripe for judicial review by the court.Executive ripeness principles are established in the case law of the United States,its purpose is to avoid providing an advisory opinion of the Court,exceeding executive powers.The development of ripeness is inseparable from the judge’s personal will and the historical facts of a specific period,in essence,it reflects the game between judicial power and administrative power.In the development of ripeness,the court initially maintained judicial humility,giving a high degree of respect for the executive power,unless there were specific cases,the courts generally did not review the rules before they were implemented.In 1967,the Supreme Court of the United States reshaped the ripeness in the Abbott case,established a two-part criterion of ripeness——fitness element and hardship element.At this point,the review of rules before the implementation is no longer a restricted area for court,and be followed constantly in the later case.Just like many doctrine,ripeness is also “fuzzy”.This ambiguity is first expressed in the standard of judgment,the degree of difficulty for the postponement of the review,different judges have different understanding;whether the law excludes the pre-enforcement review,the same court will give a different explanation.Fuzziness is also reflected in the relationship between ripeness and other elements of review.Ripeness and plaintiff qualifications are so much alike that in some cases they are interchangeable;doctrine of exhaustion and final doctrine is concerned about the development stage of the administrative procedure,the same functionality makes them hard to distinguish from one another;while in the Abbott case,ripeness has absorbed judgment elements of final doctrine,so that they are locked.Thus the relationship between the ripeness and other doctrines makes the rule system full of confusion,careful distinction was difficult or futile.Perhaps the most important thing is not to separate them in either this or that by force,but find out the keys that they apply for.Ripeness in the system of administrative litigation in the United States have enjoyed great development,since professor Mingyang Wang introduced ripeness in the book American Administrative Law,scholars based on the knowledge of this book begin to study the application of ripeness in administrative litigation of China.Some scholars believe there are cases of application of ripeness in China’s judicial practice,according to the interpretation of Administrative Procedure Law that the "actual impact" criterion is transplanted from ripeness,the future development of Chinese Administrative Procedure Law should therefore continue to dig deeper the value of ripeness,perfecting the system of administrative litigation.Because the understanding of many scholars is only based on the writings of Professor Mingyang Wang,source is single,while they did not continue to track the development of ripeness in the United States,therefore,the allegations facing foundation is not strong,failed to keep pace with the times and so on.The research on ripeness requires more effort.