行政協議的識別方式──以“永佳紙業案”為例的考察

行政協議被納入行政訴訟受案範圍後，如何識別行政協議的問題引發了持續爭論。在行政協議司法解釋的基礎上，最高法院通過典型案例“永佳紙業案”闡述了圍繞“四個要素和兩個標準”形成的識別方式。由於其中所採用的形式標準並不具有識別功能，實質標準缺乏實質內涵，對這些標準予以綜合判斷亦無助于行政協議識別方式的確立。因此，應大幅簡化上述行政協議識別方式。具體而言：應排除不具有識別功能的形式標準，致力於以內容要素作為單一標準來識別行政協議。司法解釋中規定的“具有行政法上權利義務內容”存在多種不同解釋，應以協議內容是否“設定、變更或終止”行政法律關係作為識別行政協議的基本標準。識別過程中的關鍵區分點，則在於協議內容是否“觸動行政權”。儘管從學理上籠統而言，行政協議可以具有“替代”行政決定的功能，個案中仍需具體指明協議內容如何“替代”行政決定或“觸動行政權”，才可以最終確定其法律屬性。

After the revised Administrative Litigation Law incorporates administrative agreements into the scope of acceptance of cases, the issue of how to identify administrative agreements has caused continuous disputes. On the basis of the promulgated Judicial Interpretation for Administrative Agreement, the Supreme People's Court elaborated the identification method centered on “four elements and two criteria” through the leading case of “Yongjia Paper Company”. Since the adopted formal criteria do not have the function of identification and the substantive criterion lacks substantive connotation, a comprehensive judgment of these criteria could not help to establish an identification method. Therefore, the existing identification method should be greatly simplified. Specifically, the formal criteria without identification function should be excluded and substantive criterion should be used as a single standard to identify administrative agreements. Since “content with rights and obligations under administrative law” stipulated in the Judicial Interpretation may have various connotations, whether the content of the agreement “sets, changes or terminates” an administrative legal relationship should be used as a basic criterion for identifying administrative agreements. The key distinguishing point in the identification process is whether the content of the agreement “touches the executive power”, which is called “touching theory”. Although generally speaking, an administrative agreement can function as a “substitute” for an administrative decision, it is still necessary to specifically determine how the content of the agreement becomes a “substitute” for an administrative decision or “touches the administrative power” in a case before its legal nature can be finally determined.