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Law enforcement must not have the motive of profit-seeking, and "law enforcement in violation of laws and regulations" and "law enforcement in deep-sea fishing" are even more wrong, and must be seriously held accountable.
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Text丨 Shen Bin
On October 8, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Zheng Shajie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that it is necessary to further standardize the administrative law enforcement behavior of administrative law enforcement units, adopt more inclusive and prudent supervision and soft law enforcement methods, and cannot violate laws and regulations in different places and seek profits.
The governance of "illegal law enforcement in different places and profit-seeking law enforcement" has been put into the "package of incremental policies", which also shows that serious problems such as profit-seeking law enforcement and abnormal growth of fines and confiscation revenues directly affect China's economic recovery and are a serious obstacle to building a benign business environment. Therefore, Director Zheng Shajie made a clear policy statement at this high-profile press conference.
Dealing with arbitrary fines, inspections, and seizures is related to administration according to law, to the stable operation of the economy, and to the rule of law as well as an economic issue -- because the rule of law is the best business environment, and the socialist market economy is an economy governed by law.
Director Zheng Shajie's statement is targeted. At present, the contradiction between fiscal revenues and expenditures in some localities has intensified, and individual departments and law-enforcement units have turned their crooked brains to profit-seeking law enforcement, in an attempt to "increase revenue with fines" or even engage in "fines for profit-seeking." As a result, the revenues from fines and confiscations in some localities have increased abnormally. This practice of "drinking water to quench thirst" is seriously harmful and has endless troubles.
In particular, "illegal law enforcement in different places" has been criticized by the people, which has seriously damaged the credibility of law enforcement. This is the so-called "deep-sea fishing" law enforcement problem that has recently been hotly discussed in legal and business circles: individual judicial organs and law enforcement agencies have gone to other places (especially in economically developed areas) to handle cases in violation of laws and regulations, illegally sealed, frozen, or even transferred the property of enterprises and individuals in other places, and even arrested the persons in charge of enterprises, in an attempt to "intercept" the assets of non-local enterprises through this method of "deep-sea fishing".
Moreover, "illegal law enforcement in different places" is quite prominent in individual areas, and even grassroots police stations in coastal areas have issued a notice to enterprises in their jurisdictions that "foreign public security shall not illegally enter enterprises to handle cases", especially reminding that "if the foreign public security is not accompanied by the local public security, illegally enter the enterprise to handle cases, please immediately: 110 police + take photos for evidence".
In the name of law enforcement, this kind of "law enforcement in violation of laws and regulations in different places" carries out acts that harm the interests of enterprises, and goes to the opposite of impartial law enforcement and law enforcement, and is a naked treatment of non-local enterprises as "cash cows", and behind it is serious problems of perverting the law, dereliction of duty, and corruption. This kind of "illegal law enforcement in different places" also makes entrepreneurs tremble, dare not invest, dare not expand their business, for fear of becoming victims of "deep-sea fishing".
Illegal operations such as "deep-sea fishing" and "profit-seeking law enforcement" seem to be able to temporarily alleviate the problem of fiscal revenue in some localities, but in fact they are fishing for enterprises, and in law enforcement work they have bundled illegal purposes such as "profit-seeking" and "debt-turning", making the law instrumentalized and the cases "operationalized", so that the government's credibility has been clouded and the authority of the law has been damaged.
In February this year, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Regulating and Supervising the Setting and Implementation of Fines", which pointed out the problem of unreasonable growth in fine revenues and demanded that "efforts should be made to ensure that enterprises and the public can see a clean and upright atmosphere in every law enforcement act and feel fairness and justice in every law enforcement decision". This time, Director Zheng Shajie also emphasized that law enforcement in other places and profit-seeking law enforcement should not be carried out in violation of regulations, which not only shows the prominence and seriousness of problems such as indiscriminate fines, but also shows the determination of the decision-making level to govern.
Law enforcement must not have the motive of profit-seeking, otherwise the law will be desecrated, and "law enforcement in violation of laws and regulations" and "law enforcement in deep-sea fishing" are even more wrong, and we must be seriously held accountable, stop this unhealthy trend, and protect the business environment.
Editor|Shen Guanzhe
Typesetting|Gan Qiongfang
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