Functional Position and Systemic Structure of Legal Relations in Administrative Law
The doctrine of legal relations has gone through a development process con-sisting of an early stage,a full-scale incubation stage,and a continuous updating stage.Today,the development of this doctrine is already free from the function of conceptual inspiration and closely connected with the doctrine of subjective public rights,the theory of sources of law,and even the doctrine of the law of modus operandi,and thus presents great richness and complexi-ty.However,compared with its growing importance in foreign laws,the doctrine of legal rela-tions has been in a state of"preparedness but not used"in Chinese administrative law.It re-gained the attention of academia after the theory of balance was proposed and the study of the rights of the relative person emerged.However,due to the limitations of the study,it had al-ways remained outside of the core scope of administrative law and had not developed multiple facets until the revival of the theory of public rights.The doctrine of legal relations is a corollary of the constitutional changes concerning the State/individual relationship and its cognitive foun-dations can be understood in terms of the substitution of power relations,the evolving doctrine of status,and the order of equality between the State and the individual.Because legal relations are relations between two or more subjects shaped by legal norms,their subjects,rights and ob-ligations,and normative construction have also been taken as the three core elements of the le-gal relations doctrine.In systematic arrangement,legal relations are either used as a substitute for administrative acts or sidelined into special administrative law,but these established posi-tions are not compatible with the advantages that legal relations doctrine has demonstrated in the context of complex administration.The doctrine of legal relations provides a framework that is integrative to the overall administrative law order.Its role as the pivot of the administrative law system is reflected in the following aspects:first,legal relations can integrate originally uncon-nected individual elements of the general theory of administrative law into a structured whole;second,legal relations can remedy deficiencies of traditional teachings and become more closely connected with the traditional administrative law by revealing the cognitive blind spots of the tra-ditional categories such as subjective public rights and administrative acts;third,legal relations expand the research territory of administrative law and enable administrative law research to get rid of the traditional path dependence and stimulate conceptual innovation;fourth,legal rela-tions not only are the analytical tool in many special administrative law fields but also provide the order framework for the new administration;and fifth,legal relations have become a new pivot point even in administrative litigation.In short,legal relations have become an indispen-sable structural element of the contemporary administrative law system with a significant impact on both substantive and procedural law.
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维普
