Research On Punitive Damages System Of Food Safety In China

Since October 1st of 2015,China has begun to implement the newly revised "Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China". In this amendment,the fee of damages has been increased into three times and the minimum amount of compensation has been decided in the terms of punitive damages, and this becomes one of the highlights. In this study,in order to determine the concept and the nature of the punitive damages system,the Legal Analysis, Empirical Analysis, Comparative analysis, Comprehensive analysis and other research methods had been used, and at last, the function of the punitive damages system has been concluded; Combining with the legislative background of new " Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China ",the author has analyzed the reality and the problems the punitive damages system, and put forward some suggestions to improve them. Specifically, this study is divided into the following four parts:In the first part, by analyzing the concept and the terms of the system, the author has found the true definition and nature of punitive damages, and introduced the five main functions of this system and studied the legislative value and the objectives pursued by the Food Safety Law in the context of specific legislation.In the second part,through comparative studying and case studying,the author reviewed the scope of applications and elements of punitive damages in the representative countries?regions? such as America,Germany and Taiwan,and estimated the punitive damage system of the overseas, including the strong punishment functions, focusing on the source controls in the whole process and guiding the enforcement of the law through giving incentives to privates and so on.In the third part, by using the Empirical Analysis Method, the author introduced the legislative background and the application of the punitive damages system in China, and raised the existing problems that happening in the society. They are mainly from the five following aspects: Firstly, the liability subject scope is narrow; Secondly, the rights subject scope is narrow; Thirdly, the applications of the food safety punitive damages system is not very clear; Fourthly, the burden of proof allocation is not very reasonable;Fifthly, the referee standard is not uniform when label defects occur.In the fourth part, combining with the comparative analysis, the author put forward some suggestions on the five problems that exist in the application of punitive damages system. First of all, expand the main responsibility scope of punitive damages; Secondly,expand the rights scope of the punitive damages; Thirdly, improve the applications in the punitive damages system; In addition, making the configuration of the burden of proof reasonable; Finally, unify the judge standard of label defects in the punitive damages system.