The 2019 case in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, which was fined 66,000 yuan for selling five jin of celery, has drawn great attention and sparked heated discussions after the intervention of The State Council inspection team and the coverage by CCTV. On the one hand, it is the legal legitimacy of administrative decisions and enforcement based on laws and regulations; on the other hand, it is the irritability reflected by the huge disparity between meager profits and high fines. The two are the essence of the public controversy. Such cases of "minor offenses and heavy penalties" not only expose food safety issues, but also highlight problems in administrative legislation and law enforcement, whose root causes mainly lie in two aspects: one is the imperfection of administrative legislation, and the other is the "mechanical administration" phenomenon manifested on the surface of law enforcement and the problems reflected in the ability of administrative personnel. The relevant provisions of the Administrative penalty law should be further refined to enhance the ability of administrative personnel to exercise discretionary power and comprehensively apply administrative legal norms, so as to better balance the rationality and legality of administrative legislation and law enforcement.

Tian Chunyu, Zhao Dezhu. Exploration of the Optimization Path for Administrative Legislation and Administrative Law Enforcement— Taking the Celery Case of Luo in Yulin, Shaanxi Province as a Starting Point. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2025), Vol. 7, Issue 4: 14-20. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2025.070403.

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