Study On The Rules For Determining The Amount Of Environmental Administrative Fine

Fines are the most common method used in the field of environmental administrative punishment.The core content of environmental administrative fines lies in the determination of the amount of fines.The composition and calculation of environmental administrative fines in our country lack the guidance of substantive rules.In addition,the inherent defects of fine setting methods,especially the inflexibility and adaptability of numerical distance fines,have caused the fines to be very small or heavy,and the fines cannot match the environmental damage or illegal benefits.In the face of criticism,the legislature has substantially raised the upper limit of environmental fines and expanded the range of fines in order to cover environmental damage or illegal benefits,but this greatly increases the risk of abuse of discretionary power.Administrative agencies have to formulate a large number of environmental administrative punishment discretion standards,but the technical discretionary standard system itself cannot truly respond to the substantive problem of the mismatch between the amount of fines and environmental damage or illegal benefits.The reasons for the above-mentioned problems and dilemmas of environmental administrative fines in our country are,on the one hand,the confusion of legal logic guidance.Scholars are not clear about the function of environmental administrative fines.The functions of sanction（punishment）,deterrence（prevention）,compensation（recovery）are mixed,which makes the environmental administrative fines lack clear standards.On the other hand,in the legislative practice,the environmental administrative property penalty system is unbalanced,and the system of confiscation of illegal gains cannot achieve the function of depriving "illegal benefits",which leads to expectations and criticism of the fine function.In comparative law,the US environmental civil penalties policy clarifies the deterrent goal of penalties.The "economic benefits component" and the "gravity component" are the basic components of penalties;the German environmental fines use the "economic benefits of illegal income" as the lower limit of fines.Administrative fines include the function of sanctions against environmental violations and the deprivation of illegal economic benefits,and the latter one is to fulfill the function of prevention.The environmental administrative fines rules in Taiwan of China are modeled after German legislation,but there are still differences.They use "illegal interests" as a penalty aggravating factor.And penalty ceilings,and formulated corresponding estimation and accounting rules.Based on our country’s legislative and legal enforcement reality and comparative law experience,the way to improve our country’s environmental administrative fines is firstly to clarify the functions of environmental administrative fines,and secondly deal with the relationship between environmental administrative fines and the confiscation of illegal gains and deprivation of illegal benefits,and thirdly determine the standards,composition and calculation rules of environmental administrative fines on the basis of the foregoing.Environmental administrative fines should have the functions of sanctions and prevention as order punishments.In the environmental legal liability system,its function is not suitable for directly compensating for environmental damage.In order to achieve the sanctions and prevention goals of environmental administrative fines,China should establish an environmental fine composition based on deprivation of "illegal benefits",absorb the function of confiscation of illegal gains,set "illegal benefits " as the lower limit of fines,and clarify that when "illegal benefits " exceed the statutory maximum fine,the latter can be exceeded,the maximum fine can be determined as the sum of the "illegal interest" and the maximum legal fine;at the same time,relevant administrative rules shall be formulated to determine the scope,type,calculation method,etc.of the "illegal interest";in addition,on the basis of depriving of "illegal benefits",based on the severity of the violation and adjustment factors,additional "penalties" are determined with the aid of environmental administrative punishment discretion standards.