First Violation Without Penalty in Maritime Sector

This paper focuses on the "first violation without penalty" scheme in the maritime field. In view of the issues such as ambiguous definition, unclear implementation standards, and relatively insufficient supporting measures that emerged during its implementation, in order to fully realize its value and function in the maritime sector and ensure the implementation effect, first of all, it precisely defines the characteristics of "first violation without penalty" illegal acts. These acts require fault, must be formally legal, and are of an extremely minor nature, meanwhile the scope is narrowed by excluding serious illegal types, e.g., illegal acts involving heavier liabilities like personal liberty penalties and qualification penalties, illegal acts that should be concurrently punished with multiple administrative penalties, intentionally committed illegal acts with relatively large subjective malignance, and illegal acts that remain uncorrected after being ordered to correct. Secondly, it elaborates in detail on the implementation standards of the maritime "first violation without penalty" scheme, which includes establishing a unified list and making dynamic adjustments, clarifying the starting date of calculation, time limit, and scope of judgment objects of "first", as well as the application of the simplified procedure. It also proposes supporting measures such as establishing and utilizing working schemes like maritime credit rating evaluation and key tracking of ships, establishing an applicable judgment module in the maritime violation-handling system, improving the internal performance appraisal of the maritime administrative authority, strengthening the trace-keeping scheme, and intensifying law enforcement supervision and establishing standard guidance cases. In future practices, continuous attention should be paid to the operating effect of this scheme, and feasible suggestions on how to optimize and adjust it have been put forward.