A Study On The Plaintiff Issue In Civil Public Interest Litigation

It has been an urgent appeal of the Chinese legal community to establish a civil public interest litigation system in China in order to better protect public interest.In recent years,people in China have become more aware of safeguarding public rights and interests and have been suing for violations of these rights.Many cases,however,ended by rejecting the appeal for the reason that the complainant is not qualified as a plaintiff. Plaintiff qualification,therefore,has become the bottleneck of civil public interest litigation.Hence,to successfully establish a civil public interest litigation system in China,we should first address the plaintiff qualification issue.After reviewing relevant theories regarding plaintiff qualification in civil public interest litigation,this paper makes a comparative study of different countries' legal sytem in this regard.And based on the analysis,the author puts forward some personal views about the plaintiff issue in the hope that these views might be conducive to the establishment of a civil public interest litigation system in China.The first part of the paper reviews the concept of public interest and the characteristics of civil public interest litigation and discusses the defintion of plaintiff in civil public interest litigation.The second part is a detailed analysis of the plaintiff issue in some major countries.It points out that in those countries,the civil public interest litigation system has been widely acknowledged and the plaintiff in this kind of litigation tends to be multiple entities.The third part analyses the current situation of the plaintiff issue in civil public interest litigation in China.From legislative and judicial perspectives,China's legal system stipulates the protection of public interest.However,in the case of violations of public interest,it is very difficult to file lawsuits.Consequently,public interest in China has not been effectively protected.The loss of state assets,pollution of the environment,infringement of consumer's rights and interests occurred frequently.Therefore,it is high time that China established a plaintiff system regarding civil public interest litigation.The final part of the paper elaborates on the establishment of a plaintiff system regarding civil public interest litigation.It first analyses the status of the procuratorial agency in civil public interest litigation,then discusses the issue of social groups acting as the plaintiff as well as ordinary citizen's rights to file lawsuit when public interest is violated.In the end,this paper addresses the qualification of attorneys as the plaintiff in civel public interest litigation.