Food Safety Law Amendments: A Pack of Lies or Time for Real Change?

Photo credit: PNN Public Television Opinion Center

Food safety scandals keep erupting, and the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation has been amended more than five times in five years. If it worked, it would have worked long ago. If it remains entirely ineffective, there is likely a problem with the vision and a flaw in the strategy. In a word, there has been no shift in mindset. Yesterday (11/18), the Food Safety Act was amended and passed its third reading. Its sole highlight—best described in four words—is a "upped ante." The maximum fine was increased tenfold: for individuals, from NT$20 million to NT$200 million; for legal entities, from NT$200 million to NT$2 billion. The core mindset remains unchanged; the content is merely old wine in a new bottle. To put it bluntly, it is the philosophy of "using heavy penalties in times of trouble." Such a mindset and legislation are less about ensuring food safety than about giving the public a false sense of security while shutting them up. Ruling authorities only know how to govern through "harsh penalties for chaotic times," and the public has grown accustomed or numb to it. It is a vicious cycle: criminal penalties become harsher, yet the problem remains right where it started.

Nobody Does a Losing Business

Amendments to food safety laws actually hinge on only two key points: first, effective deterrence against manufacturers; second, robust protection for consumers.

Businesspeople are not fools; the purpose of doing business is to make money. No one runs a business that turns no profit, and industries with excessively high risks are easily abandoned. To eradicate unscrupulous manufacturers, the risk of bad practices must be made high—extremely high, exceptionally high—to the point of being unaffordable and leading to utter ruin. Only then will deterrence be effective.

No matter the method, unscrupulous manufacturers must be made to hurt and go under before they will stop. Thus, severe penalties can be used to put those in charge behind bars. Heavy fines can be imposed—criminal fines or administrative penalties—to make them hurt. The ultimate "trump card" is the seizure of illicit gains. To put it plainly, it means forcing unscrupulous actors to cough up every last cent of their dirty money, completely and cleanly.

Foreign legislation places its primary focus on this third approach, exhausting all means to seize illicit gains. Prosecutors effect seizures at the earliest possible moment, the court's scope of discretion is narrowed, the money is seized first, and everything else is dealt with later. During enforcement, prosecutors, investigators, and administrative inspectors must join forces to ensure not a single loophole is left. As for the first two—imprisonment or fines—both are forms of punishment. Constrained by the principle of "ne bis in idem" (prohibition of double jeopardy), authorities generally have to choose one over the other, making them secondary rather than central.

With this analysis, it is clear that the amendments over the past five years still heavily emphasize punishment while taking a light approach to recovering money, dooming them to failure. People will still take on capital offenses; no matter how long the prison sentence, it rarely exceeds seven years. As long as the green hills remain, there will be firewood to burn after getting out of prison. This is the most "rational" economic analysis.

On the other hand is consumer protection. The most powerful approach is to directly prioritize the distribution of recovered illicit gains to victims. Ideally, whether through administrative or judicial proceedings, once a case is processed and victimized consumers jointly participate in the proceeding, they can obtain compensation or restitution. Under the new law, victims still have to file lawsuits in court on their own. Sharing lawyer fees, shifting the burden of proof, and assisting with class-action lawsuits are all trivial details. The mere "grind" of litigation is enough to deter people from stepping forward.

The Judiciary Passing the Buck

With the amendments turning out this way, the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Yuan cannot escape blame. They have bickered endlessly over principal and accessory penalties and remained divided on whether to abolish criminal fines. These conceptual distinctions are hardly the problem at all; foreign legal systems already offer plenty of legislative examples to reference. The fundamental problem lies in turf-conscious thinking, with each side simply wanting to shirk responsibility.

As mentioned earlier, seizing illicit gains is the fundamental cure. Yet tracking down illicit gains is a daunting task and exceedingly cumbersome in actual execution. The Ministry of Justice does not want to "solicit" too much business that would force prosecutors to expend massive effort and mental energy tracking the cash flows of manufacturers. Therefore, it advocates abolishing criminal fines, leaving administrative agencies to issue fines instead. Under the guise of "punishing swiftly" and avoiding double jeopardy, it is actually turf-conscious thinking: avoiding extra work for two different authorities.

Furthermore, the Judicial Yuan's argument that "without a principal penalty (imprisonment or fine), there is no accessory penalty (confiscation, collection, or restitution)" stems, at its root, from an extreme reluctance to touch this mess. To confiscate, collect, recover, or seek restitution, judges must trace cash flows and make endless calculations—unquestionably a grueling chore.

Moreover, if victimized consumers were also incorporated into the litigation process to receive compensation proportional to their losses within the same judicial proceeding, coupled with handling the sheer mass of consumers, it would be a miracle if judges were not worked to death. The Judicial Yuan politely declines such grueling chores, preferring to leave the public to seek their own remedies. If you want money, sue on your own. If the lawsuit fails and you find yourself with nowhere to turn, the public can only take to the streets.

Public grievance must find an outlet; when doors within the system are closed, grievances spill outside the system. Ultimately, state organs that merely seek to shirk responsibility are the culprits. Coupled with the underlying hesitation to let bad manufacturers go bankrupt, is the vision of such state amendments truly centered on the people?

Dare We Ask: What Is the Vision of the Amendments?

For ordinary folk, they have only one demand regarding food: that it be safe. A humble yet basic requirement. Facing manufacturers, you may earn whatever profits you are due, as long as the food is safe. Facing the government, whatever needs regulating, you must regulate properly, as long as the food provides peace of mind.

The strategy behind this latest round of amendments is truly hard to compliment. If things continue this way, even if fines are raised to NT$20 billion, failing to address the core issues amounts to nothing more than self-consolation. One truly wonders where politicians place the vision for these amendments. Are they just trying to pull a fast one before the elections, casually giving voters "an explanation"? Or is it actually time for a dramatic change—to urgently swap in "a new brain"?