Research On The Perfection Of Punitive Damages System In China

As a basic system in civil liability fields, Punitive damages system has been widely applied in Anglo-American law system especially in the United States, which has a history of more than two hundred years. Different from the general damages system, punitive damage system is to punish and deter defendant's wrong doing and to award plaintiff the monetary compensation which exceeds the actual damages. Along with the confluence of the two big law systems and the unceasing development of civil responsibility system, punitive damage system has been affecting and penetrating into the civil law countries and regions gradually.The Punitive damage system has been admitted by our current legislation in macro structure, but it still has some imperfections such as the constitutive elements and compensation amount definition. This paper is focusing on how to perfect the next punitive damages system legislation in our country.This paper including four parts, the first part is the introduction. The second part is the basic theory of punitive damages, including the basic concept of punitive damages, its history and development in the two big law systems, the analyzes of the main function and constitutive elements of punitive damages system. On the foundation of demonstrating the present situation of punitive damages system, the third part then analyzes the disputes in the academic and practice fields of China. The fourth part is the key one of this paper, after analyzing the issue problems in the constitutive elements, the scope of application and the way of amounting in China's punitive damages system, it proposes some ideas and suggestions for the next Legislative design.