Fire accident liability determination refers to the behavior of the public security firefighting agency to determine the responsibility of the responsible person in accordance with the law after the fire occurs.
According to the provisions of Article 29 of the "Regulations on Fire Accident Investigation and Handling Procedures" (Ministry of Public Security Order No. 37), the responsibilities of the person responsible for fire accidents should be divided into direct responsibility, indirect responsibility, leadership responsibility, There are four categories of direct leadership responsibilities.
The identification of liability for fire accidents has three distinctive features:
First, the specificity of the subject. The determination of responsibility for fire accidents is carried out in accordance with the law by the public security firefighting agency. The public security firefighting agency is an internal agency of the public security agency. It is authorized by the "Fire Protection Law" and has obtained the qualification of an administrative law enforcement entity.
But at the same time, the public security fire brigade is an active service system in our country and is part of the armed police force. Therefore, my country's fire protection work has formed a very distinctive Chinese characteristic of "military law enforcement."
The second is scientificity. After a fire occurs, due to the destructiveness of the accident scene and the destructiveness of fire fighting, it has become a worldwide problem to identify the cause of the fire, which needs to be achieved through high-tech technical means. Therefore, it is based on the investigation of the cause of the fire. The determination of liability for fire accidents has a distinct scientific nature.
The third is the quasi-judicial nature of the facts. To correctly determine responsibility, in addition to requiring fire accident liability determination personnel to have relevant professional and technical backgrounds (being able to correctly analyze the causal relationship between the three elements of a fire and the fire facts and fully grasp fire administrative regulations), fire accident liability determination personnel are also required to have On the basis of grasping the principle of responsibility.
Be able to correctly analyze the legal causal relationship between the responsible person's behavior that caused the fire (including behavior that caused the spread and spread of the fire) and the consequences of the fire damage. The requirements for legal liability knowledge and logical analysis ability are the basic qualities of legal professionals.
After the fire accident liability is determined, civil disputes caused by the fire are often based on this, so that the fire accident liability determination actually has the effect of determining the rights and obligations of the counterparty.
Due to the special management system and frequent mobility of active-duty troops, the professional quality of practitioners involved in fire accident liability determination has always been difficult to meet expectations.
In addition, the current number of fire cause investigation practitioners is small (about 3,000 nationwide), the tasks are heavy (98,280 fires occurred nationwide in the first quarter of 2005 alone), and the equipment is poor (the grassroots organizations are not equipped, and there are almost no technical equipment), few professional institutions (there are only 4 professional fire protection scientific research institutions in the country.
Only one conducts fire investigations), and legal provisions are too principled (there are only four categories of responsibilities, and even the definition of each responsibility is unclear) No), the current situation of liability determination for fire accidents in my country is not optimistic and seriously lags behind the development of the socialist market economy.
Extended information
What is the nature of liability determination for fire accidents?
There are completely different views on the determination of the nature of liability for fire accidents. The Ministry of Public Security pays attention to the particularity and scientific nature of the subject, and believes that the determination of liability for fire accidents, like the determination of liability for traffic accidents, is a technical appraisal, not an administrative act, and does not fall within the scope of administrative litigation.
Some people in the legal profession pay attention to the quasi-judicial nature of administrative subject qualifications and fact determination, and believe that the determination of liability for fire accidents belongs to administrative confirmation.
This difference is reflected in judicial practice, as in the administrative litigation for determining liability for fire accidents. Some courts accept and make judgments, while some courts refuse to accept the case on the grounds that it does not fall within the scope of administrative litigation.
First of all, we must confirm that the determination of liability for fire accidents is not a technical appraisal, but an administrative act. Article 4 of the Fire Protection Law stipulates: "The public security organs of the local people's governments at or above the county level shall supervise and manage fire safety within their own administrative regions, and the fire protection departments of the public security organs of the people's governments shall be responsible for implementation.
According to this authorization , the public security firefighting agency has the qualification of an administrative subject.
According to the provisions of Article 39 of the Fire Protection Law, after a fire accident occurs, the public security firefighting agency shall determine the responsibility for the fire accident based on the cause of the fire, fire losses, etc. Responsibilities.
Therefore, the determination of liability for fire accidents is an act of administrative agencies performing their statutory duties and is an administrative act. What kind of administrative act is the fire accident liability determination letter? Before answering this question, we must first clarify the object of the fire accident liability determination letter and what legal consequences it will produce.
As the name suggests, who should be identified as responsible for fire accidents and what responsibilities should be borne. Responsibility in the usual sense has three meanings, one is "obligation", the other is "fault" and "condemn", and the third is "punishment" and "consequences".
Liability in the legal sense usually refers to the third meaning, that is, due to the violation of legal provisions or the occurrence of specific legal facts, the responsible person should bear adverse consequences.