Research On The Reform And Improvement Of China’s Credit Repair Mechanism

Credit stems from social interaction when everyone hankers after others’ recognition for his or her dignity and position and judgement is made on others naturally during this social communication.People adhere to the interpersonal communication philosophy of integrity in traditional Chinese society,which is gradually ignored along with the social progress brought by economic development,hence the fading of credit.China has promoted credit governance step by step,and has made significant achievements especially on the formed system of regulation and punishment against dishonest behaviour.Credit governance is not aimed at punishing but is developed for the original intention of leading dishonest entities back to the good faith and renovating the dishonest society through credit repair.The General Office of the State Council issued the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Social Credit System and Constructing a New Credit-based Supervision Mechanism in 2019,stressing the importance of repair mechanism for enhancing post-event credit supervision and specifying the credit to be repaired in multiple ways if dishonest entities could correct untrustworthy behavior and eliminate negative influence within the legal time limit.Credit repair,as a new innovation incentive mechanism,is different from the traditional Red List system.The mechanism is intended to reconstruct dishonest entities’ credit awareness and moral principle of being trustworthy,to protect their lawful rights and interests,and to help them return to the normal track.The new credit repair mechanism may easily confront an operational dilemma at the early stage of its establishment,which requires specified validity basis for the operation.The necessity of law-based administration,a principle to be obeyed,comes at first when the credit repair mechanism is built.Organs of state power shall exercise public power within the existing legal framework,strictly repair credit according to present regulations,and guarantee dishonest entities’ right of credit repair.No decisions shall be made beyond current legal provisions which may cause the infringement upon dishonest entities’ legitimate rights and interests or the increasing obligations.Furthermore,the principle of proportion shall be kept in credit repair mechanism when the legitimacy of its establishment is examined by the conformity review of aim;the substantial social effects examined by the suitability review in credit repair;the achieved goal and the minimum damage guaranteed by the necessity review in practice;and then the management evaluated by the balancing review therein.Credit repair is essentially a relief mechanism of rights,whose establishment takes the respect and protection of human rights as the core,and therefore dishonest entities’ right to repair credit should be fully protected to assist entities in taking initiative measures for effective amendment.As the best supervision on credit repair,appropriate information disclosure could,in accordance with its principles,ensure the credibility of it,safeguard the public’s right to know,and warn the potential dishonesty.Authorities shall also abide by the principle of efficiency when the credit repair mechanism is performed considering the repair cost and the social benefits obtained afterwards,in order to prevent the waste of administrative and judicial resources in the way of boosting credit repair efficiency.China has spread credit repair nationwide for the construction of a credit society,while the design of related mechanism is to be improved in repair practice due to the late start of this mission.In terms of substantive handling mechanism,vague conditions for credit repair are followed by the abuse of administrative discretion;single method of credit repair brings the conflict between dishonest entities’ legitimate interests and the right to know;the undefined dishonest behavior to be repaired leads to a confusing perception of illegal acts and default ones;the practical irrelevance between substitutes and dishonest behavior is irreconcilable with the initial goal to draw up those alternatives,impeding the governance result of credit repair.From the perspective of setting organizations for credit repair,no definite functional division is made between state authorities and social public power;incompatible situation easily occurs between administrative power and judicial one when different credit repair organizations deal with the same task.A reasonable design is a requisite for the credit repair mechanism from the above-mentioned three aspects,which could provide references for prescribing and implementing credit repair specifications.