On Dec 4, 2015, the Parliament of Mongolia nullified the Law on Administrative Liability adopted on Nov 27, 1992, and passed the Law on Infringement. The new law will come into effect starting from September 1, 2016, up to this date the previous law will remain in effect. The new law was adopted in line with the revised version of the Criminal Law and all laws containing articles in connection with administrative liabilities are amended accordingly. The new law is intended to correct some problems encountered under the previous law.
According to the new law, main punishment types for infringements are “to fine” and “to deprive or restrict a right.” The former potential punishment of arrest for 7-30 days is removed. Fines range from 10 to 10,000 units for individuals and from 100 to 50,000 units for legal entities (a unit equals 2000 tugrugs). The amount of such fine is considerably higher than the fine imposed by the previous law.
Administrative liability aims to punish business entities or individuals which have breached the public order and hopes to prevent re-occurrence of such breach. However, the penalties imposed by the previous law did not have a strong deterrent effect on violators and there were several cases where the person charged with the administrative penalty committed the same offense repeatedly. This was the main cause leaded to the increase of the fine amount.
Beginning September 1, 2016, unless a breach of environmental, sanitation, labor, land, licensing, finance and audit laws rises to the level of a criminal offence, punishment for such action will be imposed pursuant to the Law on Infringement.
The new law consolidates approximately 1200 violations formerly specified in over 200 different legislation texts, and which were previously not unified under a consolidated legal policy. In the future, breaches or violations will be punished only according to the Law on Infringement. The law is expected to improve legal accountability systems and to ensure the promotion of public order.
The Law on Infringement has general and special parts similar to the Criminal Law. The law calls for penalties to match the nature of the regulatory infringement in proportion, so a small violation will not result in the maximum possible fine.