The Normative Implications and Application of the Principle of Reliance Protection in the Private Sector Promotion Law

Relying on governmental acts and official information, private economic organizations build reasonable expectations about their operational conditions and developmental objectives. This reliance and its interests should be given key recognition and protection by law. Although the Private Sector Promotion Law stipulates reliance protection through individual provisions, in terms of its normative basis and specific application scenarios, it still faces inherent tensions between administrative flexibility and law-based administration, difficulties in identifying non-typical reliance bases, imbalance in compensation and indemnification for reliance losses, and the nominal application of judicial review. There are also problems of theoretical system and normative practice not being highly compatible. The principle of reliance protection should be regarded as a core principle in promoting the private economy, constraining the arbitrary exercise of administrative power, balancing the flexibility of administrative power and law-based administration conflicts, and protecting the legitimate expectations of private economic organizations. The application of reliance protection clauses is a key link in transforming the private economy from policy dividends to institutional dividends. Therefore, focusing on the normative implications of reliance protection clauses, the practical difficulties and deep causes of their application, and proceeding from dimensions such as clause interpretation and coordination with relevant laws and regulations, norms for the exercise of administrative power, and strengthening judicial review, this paper aims to construct a clear and highly operational reliance protection norm and practice system to provide substantive and fair administrative law protection for the reliance interests of private economic organizations.