发布时间： Sat Jul 15 16:05:43 CST 2023 供稿人：李显冬、王雅妮
争议摘要
最高人民法院将行政协议定义为“行政机关为了实现行政管理或者公共服务目标，与公民、法人或者其他组织协商订立的具有行政法上权利义务内容的协议”，并明确：行政协议具体包括政府特许经营协议、土地等征收征用补偿协议，以及许多国家所有的自然资源使用权出让协议及其他各类行政协议。
但法学界就如何界定行政协议，以及行政协议与民事合同的异同，依然没有形成共识，实务界对行政协议的具体类型也各持异议。
通说认为，行政协议能够成立和存续之必要条件是协议的一方当事人为行政主体。作为协议当事人一方的行政主体与相对人签订的协议广义上可包括：(1)纯粹行使行政职权意义上的行政协议；(2)与行政主体进行公共管理或提供公共服务有关的行政协议；以及(3)实质上为纯粹民事合同的“狭义的行政协议”。
争议较大的就是第(2)种协议。对于有关法律属性的探讨，这类协议在法律法规的适用与理论上均引发了争议。
从实质上看，行政协议是行政与民事法律关系并存的文本载体，是公法私法化的法律抽象。中国现行的行政诉讼法业已确立了行政附带民事诉讼制度，有关行政协议的争议自然可予以适用。
那么，以私法形式表达的公权力行政应如何受到公法约束？源起于解决补贴法律救济问题引发争议的德国行政协议理论“双阶说”，实质上回答了这一问题。这一理论提出，将特定的行政行为划分为不同的阶段，而适用不同类型的法律进行规制。
而对于如何判断某一具体行为属于公法还是私法的问题，另有德国学者基于该理论提出了“修正主体说”，成为当前德国通用的分析框架。
学说提出，当一个国家或其他实体以公权力主体身份享有权利或承担义务时，适用的法律规范是专门与国家的官方职责相关的规范，因此应该归类为公法；而如果某法律规范可以适用于任何人，那么它就是属于任何人的法律，因此应该将其视为私法。
在中国，自然资源使用权的法律规范模式就是依照了双阶理论的修正主体说，即在自然资源使用权的协议中，就权利的分配模式根据公法予以规制。在此语境下，双阶理论的第一阶段即依照公法，回答谁可以获得自然资源使用权的问题，而在第二阶段，取得自然资源使用权的权利人，即依私法，行使自己的权利。
双阶理论自身虽存在诸多疑问，但已使传统行政法学逐步转向了“行政正确”模式，旨在确保行政决定的最优性与合法性，以及行政相对人的可接受性。该其思路在于不拘泥于Otto Mayer“公法为强行法，私法为自由法”的传统法教义学思维，能够充分利用公法与私法各自的优点，不断优化法律实施效果。实务中，“公法的私法化”也已成为行政权行使的重要实施模式。
由此，笔者认为，对于行政协议履约的争议适用民事救济途径，法律实施效果才更符合其本质法律关系。
国家作为合同一方所期望实现的公共利益，并不一定比合同另一方因撤销合同损失的利益更高。所以，相较于整体私法论抑或公法论，适用“双阶理论”能够更好地处理私法与公法之间的关系。
行政协议虽然名为行政合同，但其订立及履行阶段实质上即行政主体作为国家机关法人与其他民事主体间签订的一种纯粹的私法协议。
该法律关系确立后，政府在该特定法律关系之中即不再是行政主体，而是作为与对方当事人完全平等的民事主体来参与民事活动。
一方面，鉴于现行司法解释定义行政协议不甚清晰从而对交易安全与交易秩序均不有利，目前学界主流观点更偏向于对行政协议进行限缩解释，以保护“契约自由、意思自治”的私法原则；另一方面，行政协议兼具行政性与协议性的双重属性。
因此，笔者认为，对不同的法律关系自应当分别单独适用各自的法律规范。中国行政附带民事诉讼制度的确立，并且于行政协议中的适用，亦为此提供了立法基础。
Defining administrative agreements for related disputes
The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) defines an administrative agreement as an agreement containing rights and obligations under the administrative law entered into between an administrative organ and a citizen, legal person, or other organisations, to achieve administrative or public service objectives, through negotiation. The SPC also clarifies that administrative agreements include government concession agreements, agreements on compensation for expropriation and requisition of land, agreements on the assignment of the right to use many state-owned natural resources, and other types of administrative agreements.
However, there is still no consensus among academics on the definition of an administrative agreement, as well as the similarities and differences between an administrative agreement and a civil contract. Legal practitioners also hold divergent opinions on the types of administrative agreements.
It is commonly believed that a necessary condition for an administrative agreement to come into existence is that one of the parties to the agreement is an administrative entity. The administrative body, as one of the parties to the agreement, may sign an agreement with the other party that pertains to:
1. the exercise of administrative power;
2. public management or the provision of public services by the administrative body; or
3. a “narrowly defined administrative agreement” that is essentially a pure civil contract.
The most controversial type of agreement is the second category, which has sparked debates surrounding its legal nature, including which law should apply to it, as well as the legal theories related to it.
An administrative agreement is essentially a document that embodies the coexistence of administrative and civil legal relations, and represents the legal abstraction of the privatisation of public law. In China, the current Administrative Procedure Law has established a system of incidental civil action in administrative proceedings, which is certainly applicable to disputes over the administrative agreement.
So, how should administrative exercise of public authority in the form of private law be subject to public law constraints? The German “two-stage theory”, called Zweistufentheorie, which was initially developed in response to controversy over the legal remedies for government subsidies, essentially answers this question. This theory proposes to divide specific administrative actions into different stages and to regulate them with different types of laws.
As for how to determine whether a specific action belongs to public law or private law, a German jurist has proposed the “modified subject theory” based on the two-stage theory, which has become a common analytical framework in Germany today.
The modified subject theory proposes that when a country or other entity enjoys rights or assumes obligations in the capacity of a public authority, the applicable legal norms are those specifically related to the state’s official duties, and therefore should be classified as public law. Meanwhile, if a legal norm can be applied to anyone, it is a law for everyone, and should be considered private law.
In China, the legal regulatory model for the use of natural resources follows the modified subject theory of the two-stage theory. This means that the allocation of rights in agreements related to the use of natural resources is regulated by public law in the first stage – which determines who can obtain the right to use natural resources ‒ and private law in the second stage, which governs the exercise of those rights by the rights holder.
Although there are many problems in the two-stage theory itself, it has gradually shifted the traditional administrative law circle towards “administrative correctness”, aiming at ensuring the optimality and legitimacy of the administrative decisions, as well as the acceptability of the administrative counterpart.
The idea is to not rigidly stick to Otto Mayer’s legal doctrine of “public law is a mandatory law, private law is free law”, to make full use of the advantages of public law and private law, and to constantly optimise the effect of law enforcement. In practice, the “privatisation of public law” has become an important implementation model for the exercise of administrative power.
Therefore, the author believes that applying civil remedies for disputes related to the performance of administrative agreements is more in line with the essential legal relationship, which will have a more effective legal implementation.
The public interests that the state, as one party of the contract, expects to achieve are not necessarily higher than the interests of the other party to the contract in case of contract revocation. Accordingly, compared to the overall private law theory or public law theory to explain the administrative agreement, applying the two-stage theory can better handle the relationship between private law and public law.
Although an “administrative agreement” is named as an administrative contract, its conclusion and performance stages are essentially a pure private law agreement between administrative bodies acting as legal persons of state organs, and other civil subjects.
After the legal relationship is established, the government, within such a relationship, no longer exercises public power but participates in civil activities as a civil subject completely equal to the other party.
On the one hand, given that the definition of administrative agreement is not very clear in the current judicial interpretations, which is detrimental to both transaction safety and order, the mainstream view in academia at present is more inclined to interpreting administrative agreements restrictively in order to protect the private law principle of contractual freedom and autonomy. On the other hand, administrative agreements have dual attributes of both an administrative and a contractual nature.
Therefore, the author argues that different legal relations should be subject separately to their respective legal norms. The establishment of China’s incidental civil action system in the administrative proceedings and its application in administrative agreements also provide a solid legislative basis for this.
作者简介
作者 | 北京仲裁委员会/北京国际仲裁中心仲裁员李显冬。他也是中国地质大学(北京)特聘教授、中国政法大学国土资源法律中心主任和澳门科技大学博士研究生导师。中国地质大学(北京)法学硕士研究生王雅妮
本文刊载于《商法》2023年5月刊。如欲阅读电子版，欢迎浏览《商法》官网。
