Food safety is the bottom line, and to keep this bottom line, we need the joint efforts of all parties, and law enforcement and justice need to make positive efforts.
*TV news channel "Rule of Law**" on February 26**: Zhang, a farmer in Minhou County, Fujian, went to work in the town, and helped his neighbor collect 70 catties of celery from the field, took it to the town's vegetable market and sold it to a vegetable wholesaler, making a profit of 14 yuan. Unexpectedly, these celery were found to have excessive pesticide residues, and the local market supervision department fined Zhang 50,000 yuan, and imposed an additional fine of 50,000 yuan for failing to pay the fine in time, and applied to the local court for enforcement.
In the end, the Minhou County People's Court found that the penalty of 100,000 yuan did not match the facts and circumstances of the case and the harm to society, and violated the principle of "proportionality of punishment" in the administrative law, and decided not to approve compulsory enforcement.
On February 27, The Paper commented on this, arguing that "the law ≠ the rule of law, and the mechanical ≠ is just".
Food safety law enforcement requires such judicial correction. The "small and heavy punishment" can no longer be sustained.
On February 19, the "Guiding Opinions on Further Regulating and Supervising the Setting and Implementation of Fines" was issued, and at the beginning it said with feelings: "The administrative law enforcement work is extensive and large, and it is directly related to the trust of the masses in the party and the rule of law." Fines are a relatively common administrative law enforcement act. It clarifies that "the principle of proportionality of punishment is applied scientifically", and requires that "adhere to the principle of proportionality of punishment, so that it is lenient when it should be lenient and strict when it is severe, so as to avoid imbalance".
Similar "small and heavy punishments" have occurred repeatedly. In August 2022, "selling 5 catties of celery was fined 6."60,000 yuan" rushed to the hot search after being reported by CCTV. The same is selling celery, and it is also "selling" a huge fine. The incident happened in Yulin, Shaanxi, where Luo and his wife, who were self-employed people selling grain, oil and vegetables, bought 7 catties of celery for sale, of which 2 catties were sampled and inspected by the market supervision department, and the other 5 catties were sold. The sampling of 2 catties of celery failed to pass the inspection, and it was also excessive pesticide residues, so 6A heavy fine of 60,000 yuan.
This case of "small and heavy punishment" was inspected by the *** inspection team and was put on CCTV, which attracted widespread attention. The report also revealed: Since 2021, the Yulin Municipal Market Supervision Bureau has imposed more than 50 penalties on small and micro market entities in the food category, and 21 have been fined more than 50,000 yuan, and the relevant case value is only tens or hundreds of yuan.
From the wholesale "7 catties of celery" to the "70 catties of celery" brought along the way, why can't the cases of "small and heavy fines" be eliminated?
In fact, in order to keep the bottom line of food safety, prevention in advance is far more important than punishment after the fact.