Case Overview

In 2020, Ms. Zhang, a restaurant owner, was beaten three times by a drunken man named Liu Ting while trying to dissuade him. In a moment of desperation, Ms. Zhang grabbed the bottle and counterattacked. Based on monitoring and injury assessment, the public security organs initially determined that Ms. Zhang had injured Liu with a bottle of wine, resulting in minor injuries to Liu. The two parties constituted a "mutual assault" and both Ms. Zhang and Liu were administratively detained. Ms. Zhang was also fined 200 yuan. After Ms. Zhang filed an administrative lawsuit, both courts initially upheld the administrative penalty decision against her. This verdict caused a huge uproar at the time, and since then, there have been countless similar cases. Countless law-abiding citizens have been punished for their defensive behavior when they are subjected to illegal infringement, and have been forced into an absurd situation of "no fight back, no scolding back".

legal analysis

On June 27, 2025, the 16th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress passed the newly revised Law on Administrative Penalties for Public Security (hereinafter referred to as the "New Law"), which will come into force on January 1, 2026. Article 19 of the new law clearly stipulates the legitimate defense right in the administrative field at the legal level. "If a restraining action is taken to avoid ongoing illegal infringement and causes damage, it does not constitute a violation of public security management and shall not be punished; if the restraining action clearly exceeds the necessary limit and causes significant damage, it shall be punished according to law, but the punishment shall be reduced; if the circumstances are relatively minor, it shall not be punished

According to the newly added provision in the new law, to constitute justifiable defense, the following conditions must be met: there is a real illegal infringement, the infringement is ongoing, the defense is carried out against the infringer, the defense intention is legitimate, and it does not exceed the necessary limit.

There is a real illegal infringement, which is not limited to criminal acts, but also includes illegal acts. In a brawl caused by trivial matters, if the fault party Liu, as in the aforementioned case, takes action first and the means are obviously excessive, or if one party takes action first and continues to harm the other party despite their efforts to avoid conflict, the behavior of the counterattack party should generally be recognized as defensive behavior.

'Infringement is underway' means that defense must be targeted at the current infringement, neither a preemptive strike nor a retaliatory action afterwards. In the aforementioned case, Liu first physically assaulted Ms. Zhang three times, and Ms. Zhang, as the weaker party, grabbed a bottle of wine nearby to fight back out of self-defense instinct in the face of the urgent situation and tense psychology of the illegal infringement that occurred suddenly. This constitutes a legitimate counterattack against the ongoing illegal infringement.

'Defense against infringers' requires legitimate defense against unlawful infringers. However, the illegal infringer cannot be narrowly understood as the person who directly committed the illegal infringement, including organizers, instigators, and others who jointly committed the illegal infringement on site. In the aforementioned case, Ms. Zhang's defensive behavior meets this requirement.

The legitimacy of defensive intent requires that the purpose of carrying out defensive actions must be to protect the state, public interests, personal, property, and other rights of oneself or others from unlawful infringement. If the perpetrator intentionally uses language, behavior, or other means to provoke the other party to harm them and then retaliate, this defensive provocation is difficult to be recognized as legitimate defense. In the aforementioned case, Ms. Zhang's defensive intention was legitimate.

'Not exceeding the necessary limit' is the most challenging issue in determining legitimate defense in practice. The new law emphasizes that defensive actions should be matched with the degree of infringement and follow the principle of "minimum necessity". In the aforementioned case, Liu beat Ms. Zhang three times, causing her body to first stumble, then sit down, and finally be crushed. Her entire body was in a disadvantaged state, and there was a huge difference in body size and physical strength between the two sides. Ms. Zhang retaliated with the items she had at hand, and the wine bottles she picked up both times were thrown away without breaking. The strikes were clearly not aggressive and did not use any inappropriate violence beyond the necessary limits. Liu's minor injury may have been caused by hitting the hotel radiator, not by being hit by a bottle of wine.

In summary, according to the provisions of the new law, Ms. Zhang constitutes justifiable defense and does not constitute a violation of public security management, and should not be subject to administrative punishment.