Zhang, who lives in Minhou County, Fujian Province, was accidentally involved in a legal storm with excessive pesticide residues because he assisted his neighbors in selling vegetables. He easily resold 70 catties of celery to a vegetable wholesale firm at a small profit, but faced a fine of up to 100,000 yuan. This incident not only put Zhang in a difficult situation, but also sparked a public discussion on the reasonableness of the administrative punishment.
The incident arose when Zhang was passing by a neighbor's vegetable patch and helped bring ripe celery to the wholesale market for sale. He ended up with 1225 yuan to buy 70 catties of celery, and 1365 yuan of ** all sold, from which a meager profit of 14 yuan was earned. However, these seemingly ordinary celery were found to have excessive pesticide residues in subsequent sampling inspections and did not meet food safety standards.
In accordance with relevant laws and regulations, the local market supervision and administration bureau imposed an administrative penalty on Zhang, ordered him to make corrections and gave a warning, and confiscated 14 yuan of illegal gains and imposed a fine of 50,000 yuan. For Zhang, this fine is undoubtedly a huge burden. He failed to pay the fine within the statutory time limit because he failed to apply for administrative reconsideration or file a lawsuit, resulting in the fine being increased to 100,000 yuan.
Faced with this dilemma, Zhang applied to the Minhou County People's Court for compulsory enforcement. During the trial of this case, the court held that although Zhang's illegal act was true, considering that he was selling vegetables for the first time, not a professional vegetable vendor, and had less subjective malice, it ruled not to enforce the application for enforcement by the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau based on the principle of proportionality of the punishment. This means that Zhang does not need to pay a fine of 100,000 yuan.
The ruling in this case has aroused social concern about the reasonableness of administrative punishments. Experts pointed out that in the specific administrative law enforcement process, law enforcement personnel should accurately understand the meaning of laws and regulations, and avoid mechanical law enforcement and excessive punishment. At the same time, administrative punishment should follow the principle of proportionality, that is, the punishment should be appropriate to the nature, circumstances and degree of social harm of the violation.
This case also reminds the general public to enhance their legal awareness in their daily lives, abide by relevant laws and regulations, and avoid making big mistakes because of small things. At the same time, for administrative organs, they should also fully embody the spirit of humanistic care and the rule of law in the process of law enforcement, and ensure the fairness and reasonableness of administrative punishment.