The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ("MARA") has recently drawn up and issued the Measures for Regulating the Discretionary Power in Agricultural Administrative Punishment (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") for public consultation by April 15, 2019.
The Draft for Comment provides that wielding the discretionary power during the administrative punishment process shall be grounded on actual facts, and the types and degree of administrative punishment shall pertain to facts, nature, circumstances and the degree of social harm, in relation to the violations, and be commensurate with the level of economic development in the places where such violations are committed. The MARA may work out the discretionary threshold for specific agricultural administrative punishment items, according to the needs for unifying and standardizing the discretionary gauge for nationwide agricultural administrative law enforcement. Meanwhile, the Draft for Comment expressly states that, where the amount of fine may vary within a certain range, the punishment is categorized into severer punishment, ordinary punishment and lesser punishment, depending on the amount of a fine. The amount of fine shall be determined under the four criteria provided by the Draft for Comment, unless otherwise stipulated by other laws, regulations and rules. In case of six circumstances, including "where the unlawful act is committed by a citizen aged below 14", no punishment will be imposed according to law.