Restrictive Application of Collateral Sanctions for Misdemeanors: From the Perspective of Safeguarding the Right to Development

Collateral sanctions imposed for misdemeanors suffer from issues including a lack of standardization at the normative level, disproportionality in severity, and collateral effects. Furthermore, the scope of their impact is amplified by the continuous establishment of new misdemeanor offenses, thereby posing a challenge to the core value of safeguarding the right to development. At present, China lacks the practical conditions for the comprehensive abolition of collateral sanctions; such sanctions remain necessary for certain serious crimes, including violent and occupational crimes. General misdemeanants, however, should be exempt from such collateral sanctions. Efforts to restrict collateral sanctions for misdemeanors can be grounded in the proposition that the right to development constitutes one of the primary human rights. At the legislative level, standardization of collateral sanctions—both in criteria and application— should be achieved. The authority to impose collateral sanctions must be reserved exclusively for the Criminal Law. A criminal record sealing system should be established for misdemeanants, while provisions entailing collateral consequences within collateral sanctions must be purged. At the judicial level, the substantive objectives of collateral sanctions—namely, crime prevention and fostering social governance—must be clearly recognized. The imposition of occupational bans should be applied rationally, with perpetual collateral sanctions being avoided for misdemeanants.