"Expansion" and "Limitation" of Police Power: The Torrent of Public Opinion Behind the Revision of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law

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1. Public Participation: The draft amendments have attracted a large amount of public participation, with nearly 100,000 people submitting more than 120,000 amendments, demonstrating the high importance that society places on the boundaries of civil rights and police power.
2. The challenge of balance: The aim of the revision is to strike a balance between giving the police sufficient powers to maintain law and order, while preventing abuse of power and protecting the fundamental rights of citizens.
3. Adjustments to Provisions: The Revised Draft has made adjustments to some provisions, such as deleting the excessively subjective and vague penalty criteria, reducing the tendency of "heavy punishment", and increasing the reasonableness of punishment, especially for minor violations.
4. Expanding the scope of penalties: The revised draft also takes into account emerging social issues, such as the "black flight" of drones, cheating on exams, organizing and leading pyramid schemes, etc., as well as the punishment of fierce dogs for injuring people, which reflects the law's response to social development and new technologies.
5. Relationship with criminal law: The interaction of the draft amendments with criminal law is also an important topic, particularly in defining the boundaries of offences and criminal acts, and how to avoid loopholes within the legal system.
6. A legal expert's perspective: Peking University Law School professors Zhao Hong and Shen Yue provide academic perspectives on the revised draft, emphasizing the rationality and necessity of the law amendments, while also pointing out potential problems and challenges.

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1. Controversy over one-person enforcement: Although the Second Draft attempts to increase transparency and accountability through videotaping of the entire process, "one-person enforcement" has been criticized because it does not conform to the general principle of administrative punishment, which usually requires more than two law enforcement officers. This raises concerns about the safety of police officers and the comprehensiveness of their judgments.
2. Limitations of the hearing system: While the inclusion of juvenile administrative detention in the scope of hearings is an improvement, given the large number of administrative detention cases handled by the police each year, the full implementation of the hearing system may result in a huge workload for law enforcement agencies, leading to practical difficulties.
3. Lack of procedural safeguards: Compared with criminal proceedings, public security administrative penalties lack a unified administrative procedure law and corresponding procedural safeguards, which leads to insufficient protection of citizens' rights. Criminal law scholars tend to elevate certain offences to misdemeanors in order to introduce stricter procedural safeguards, but this also leads to discussions about the redrawing of criminal definitions and boundaries.
4. Boundaries between public security penalties and criminal law: While converting public security violations and their penalties into criminal penalties can provide stronger procedural safeguards, it may also blur the boundaries between administrative and criminal penalties, with uncertain implications for individuals and social governance.

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1. Adjustment of Penalty Amount: The revised draft has significantly increased the amount of fines, which has sparked a discussion on the reasonableness of setting fines. Some experts have called for a more detailed explanation of the tiers of fines in the legislature to ensure that the amount of fines is commensurate with the severity of the offense and to avoid excessive penalties.
2. Impact of Illegal Records: The long-term retention of illegal records and their impact on the lives of individuals, such as education and employment, has become an increasingly prominent issue. The cases cited in the report show that even minor violations can lead to serious "collateral consequences".
3. Protection of minors: The revised draft adds a system for sealing juvenile delinquency records, aiming to reduce the impact of a minor offense on minors in the future. However, there are also calls for the management of illegal records of adults to be restricted from disclosure, except within a specific legal framework.
4. Changes in public participation: Compared with the enthusiastic response to the first review draft, the public participation in the second review draft decreased significantly. This may reflect public fatigue with the ongoing interest in the law revision process, or satisfaction with the changes that have been made, but it also suggests that legislators need to continue their efforts to ensure transparency and public participation in the law revision process.

These issues show that the revision of the Law on Administrative Penalties for Public Security should not only consider the specific provisions of the law, but also think deeply about its long-term impact on society and individuals, and how to find the right balance between safeguarding public safety and respecting individual rights. In the face of these problems, legislators need to comprehensively consider the opinions of all sectors of society to ensure that the law can effectively respond to social security challenges and fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens.