A Study The Protection Of The Third Party's Right Through The Compulsory Liability Insurance Of Motor Vehicles In China

In recent years, with the rapid development of motor industry and the dramatic increase of the population of motor vehicles, traffic accidents are increasing sharply and are becoming a serious social issue. To compensate for the damage to the victims in traffic accidents and to maintain the order of road transport, Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China and Regulation on Compulsory Traffic Accident Liability Insurance for Motor Vehicles were issued and thus the compulsory liability insurance system of motor vehicles was established in China. The same as other countries, the purpose of the system is to provide basic protection to the third party as victims in traffic accidents so that the damages to them can be compensated rapidly.The protection of the third party's right is the core of this study. This paper centers on the issues related to the compulsory traffic accident liability insurance system. Through comparative analysis of the relative systems of other countries, this paper points out the defections of the current compulsory traffic accident liability insurance system in protecting the right of the third party and puts forward some suggestions on improving the law and the regulation.The first part of the paper discusses the definition of scope of the third party in the compulsory traffic accident liability insurance system in China. Through comparative analysis of the definition scope of the third party in Chinese system with the systems in other countries, the author of this paper finds that the scope of the third party in Chinese compulsory liability insurance system is too narrow and too rigid and should be extended so as to cover more victims into protection.The second part of the paper is the research on current protection practice to the third party's right under the compulsory traffic accident liability insurance system. This paper points out that there is deficiency in terms of the protection of the third party's right, mainly because of the absence of the imputation principle and the lack of the right of direct claim in traffic accident compensation liability insurance policies. Also, the stipulation about the liability scope and liability limit cannot guarantee the compensation for the third party and the stipulation about the excluded liability of insurers is too general. The author of this paper offers some suggestions about how to improve the protection of the right of the third party.Since the third party's right of direct claim is a key means to guarantee the protection of the third party's right, this right is stipulated in the insurance systems in other countries while there is no clear definition of this right in China, which makes it hard for the third party to get proper protection in traffic accidents. The third part of the paper studies the issue of the right to direct claim. Through the analysis of the legal foundation and the characteristic of the right to direct claim, the author of this paper claims that the third party should be given the right of direct claim to the insurer in the compulsory traffic accident liability insurance of motor vehicles and some legislative ideas about the exercising main body, the content and the conditions are put forward.