Draft Administrative Penalty Law available; territorial principle adopted
E020820Y6 Sep. 2002（E37）
The draft Administrative Penalty Law, which is closely connected with people's rights and obligations, was sent to the Executive Yuan for examination on August 19. The draft adopts the territorial principle. That is, any one failing to fulfill his obligations prescribed in the administrative laws in the territory of Republic of China will receive punishment.
Our administrative laws are many, and the various types of administrative penalties named differently. The punishment procedures and standards are incoherent, and a common, unifying law is absent. All the foregoing reasons have contributed to the divided opinions on the applicability of the punishment prescribed in the general provisions of the Criminal Code. The current practices rely on administrative and judicial interpretations, as well as the precedents and judgments made by administrative courts. However, such reliance has never ceased producing disputes, as court opinions and standards of punishment are often different due to changes of time and space or from case to case. Therefore, the necessity of stipulating the "mother law" of all administrative penalties, namely the Administrative Penalty Law, is unquestionable.
The draft Administrative Penalty Law, which has been urged more than seven years, has a total of 46 provisions divided into nine chapters: legislative provisions, liabilities, collective guilt and collective punishment, determination of increasing, reducing or extending punishment, punishment given to a single act and to multiple acts, time limits, competent authority, punishment procedure, and supplementary provisions. The date of implementation specified in the draft is three years after it has passed the three readings in the Legislative Yuan and been promulgated by the President. The power of punishment is subject to a three-year prescription.
Source:Commercial Times 08/20/2002
