The Research On State Interventions System Of China's Automobile Product Quality Liability

The State intervention has always come side by side with economic development,triggered by the economic condition and casting its impact in return.The history of state intervention has witnessed four phases: mercantilism,economic liberalism,monopoly capitalism and mixed state intervention.All the people who have the power are prone to abuse of the power.This is changeless experience.People in power tend to execute their power to the limit.In the area of quality assurance of consumer goods,due to the inequality between consumers and operators in real world,the interests of consumers cannot be properly guaranteed under the traditional framework of Civil Law.State intervention on consumer assistance and operator regulation are needed for re-balance.However,if the intervention goes beyond limit it would cast negative impacts to the liberty of market economy and impede market competition from functioning.Therefore,emphasizing the intervention within legal,appropriate and programmed limits while recognizing the effect of maneuver is an essential requirement of democracy and the rule of law,as well as a fundamental condition for public well being.Automobile industry in China has gained thorough development and becomes the biggest automobile market globally.However,legislation on automobile product quality liability has not yet matched the development;authority omission and over-commission both exist.Product warranty liability hasn't reached its original purpose to offer relief to customers.In order to compensate the customers,the government adopts over-remedy,including counting product wear into relief of tort,executing burden of proof by defendant to operators in judicial actions,judging manufacturers and sellers having joint liability,etc.This tendency intensifies the strict product tort liability into absolute liability,an expansion declaring the exceeding authority of the government who forces an area supposed to be governed by autonomy of privatelaw into a peremptory norm.This step harms not only the economic liberal rights of the market but also the circulation of market economy,which eventually hurts social well being.On the other hand,the design of automobile product quality administration and criminal liability system,though with a general framework already,is still lacking in organic and consistent structure.In addition,many of the liability norms are with obvious absence of operatability,indicating the authority omission in automobile product quality supervision.Current studies in this field separate the internal connection among product civil liability,administrative responsibility and criminal liability,therefore creating a structural void where the three cannot supplement each other.This thesis,based on the results of preceding scholars,argues to prevent the authority omission and over-commission of government intervention under the guidance of state intervention theory and through the design of top-layer and detailed autonomous management on product quality liability.In this way the manner of nonfeasance and nonfulfillment in government supervision can be effectively overcome and the arrogation of ‘multi-supervision' by the government eliminated;civil(including warranty and tort),administrative and criminal liability on product quality can thus wield a joint power to protect the autonomous right of automobile market and honor ‘market first' principle,bringing back the sense of product tort liability and limit the duty of government supervision within rule making,product standard making,quality liability investigating,etc.