Administrative Discretion Theory

Author: Yu Lingyun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-19
Features: Administrative discretion is a core issue in modern administrative law. It is like a "double-edged sword" – used well, it can achieve justice in individual cases; used poorly, it can severely infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of the parties involved. To prevent administrative authorities from abusing their discretionary power, many local administrative authorities have been exploring the formulation of discretionary benchmarks to control it from the perspectives of pre-action and in-action. Courts are also exploring how to effectively control the abuse of administrative discretion from the perspective of post-action and judicial review. However, some review standards stipulated in Article 45 of the "Administrative Litigation Law of the People's Republic of China," such as abuse of power and manifest injustice, still lack detailed judicial interpretations. This makes it difficult for courts at all levels to accurately apply the aforementioned laws in administrative trials, and it is prone to bias in judicial practice. This situation is closely related to the fact that theoretical research in administrative law has not yet been fully developed in this regard. Therefore, Dr. Yu Lingyun's choice of administrative discretion as a research topic should be highly meaningful. The main achievements of this book were completed by the author during their time as a visiting scholar at the Center for Research in Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, UK. The UK courts have accumulated extensive experience in judicial review, and UK administrative law scholars have conducted in-depth and detailed research on this topic. The author adopted a comparative research method, reviewing a large number of handwritten and English-language documents, combining issues encountered in China's administrative trial practice with existing theoretical achievements to focus on a relatively in-depth study of substantive review standards for administrative discretion. From this work, I not only feel the author's diligence but also see many of their own unique insights and perspectives. Of course, administrative discretion is a very complex and profound theoretical issue. This book only studies it from the perspective of judicial review, and many theoretical issues remain unaddressed. I hope more scholars will continue this research to contribute to the development of China's administrative legal system and the advancement of administrative law theory.