A Study On The Types Of Litigation Requests In Public Interest Litigation

In the recent years, as the fast development of the modern society, the injuries on the public interests become more serious, especially in the consumer protection filed and environment filed. While the traditional civil procedural system which is mainly used to resolve the civil disputes happened between in person to person has too little avail to curb or punish the illegal behaviors which hurt the public interests. With the change and adjustment of the management concept and method, the civil procedural law undertakes more responsibilities of the society management. So the research on the new civil procedural machine becomes an important project. Just as the professor called Cappelletti from Italy said, with the relationship becoming more and more complicated, only one single action can bring about much benefit or heavy losses on innumerable people, which results the powerlessness of the traditional litigation system. In 2012, the amendment of PRC civil procedural law newly increased the public interest litigation. Subsequently, the Law on protection of the rights and interests of consumers and the Law on protection of environment made relevant modification. In order to detail the system, a series judicial explanation and policies are published.On the point of pragmatic, the research on the litigation claim is a good topic. The litigation claim is the beginning and the end of a lawsuit and has an important function in the civil case. Firstly, the litigation claim is one of the requirements to file a lawsuit. Secondly, via the litigation claim, the range of the litigation activities can be determined. Thirdly, the litigation claim can help to confirm the object scope of the sentential validity. Additionally, the litigation claim can demarcate the boundaries of the public interest litigation. There are three advantages at least to study on the litigation claim. First of all, the research fits the actual needs of judicial practice. All the actions of the litigation parties and the judge are focused on the claims. Second of all, research on the claim conforms to the economic principle. Base on the critical issue of the lawsuit, the chaos of the logic and practice can be avoided. The last one is that circle on the claim can prevent the willful action of the judge. Public interest shall be reflected on the claims of the public interest litigation. The content of the claim shall beyond the personal interest and the legal effect of the claim benefit the public.The civil procedural litigation can be divided into the public interest litigation and the personal interest litigation based on the nature of the rights. Study on many countries’ public interest litigation, the citizenship, government departments and social organizations can file the suit. Based on the quantity of the plaintiffs, the personal interest litigation can be divided into single litigation, co-litigation and group litigation, amount of which, the group litigation can retain the social effects and function of protection the public interest, such as the representative litigation of England, class action of America, selected parties litigation of Japan and the group litigation of Germany. The representative litigation of England and the class action of America are given birth from the Equity Period. Because of the explicit boundary of the remedy method and the jurisdiction between the Equity Law and the Common Law, the representative litigation and the class action in the Equity Period cannot offer the compensation remedy, while the declared judgment or ban can be approached. Besides the reason of differences between the Equity Law and the Common Law, the obstacle in theory and practice is another important reason for the absence of the compensation in the representative litigation and the class action, such as the issues on the proper resource of the representative, the range of the damages and the allocation of the litigation benefits. Before 2000 year, the civil public interest litigation only offer the method to stop or prevent the illegal actions, the claim for compensation is banned. From the year of 2000, in minor countries such as Germany and France, the plaintiff is entitled to file the compensation claim in specific kind group litigation. In 2004, the Germany amended the Anti-unfair Competition Law and built up an new litigation method named Skim Ill-gotten Gain Proceeding which has a significant revolution sense. The legislator aims to make the unfair competition no more worthwhile. Although, so much attacks from scholar are pointed to the new method, while it aggravates the intensity of punishment for the illegal actions.After the studying and comparison of different countries’ public interest litigations, combined with the theory of civil law and civil procedural law, conclusion is made that there are two factors which are influent the type of the claims of the public interest litigation. One of which is the special nature of the litigation method. Another one is that the civil responsibility set in the civil law. The behavior-deliver claim has the nature of common which means that all parties who involved in the case will be effect by the outcome of the litigation. So the behavior-deliver claim has the ability to deter the illegal action and prevent the illegal action happened again in the future. The property-deliver claim has the nature of relativity which means that specific objet to be paid and specific acceptance action are essential. Considering the purpose and function of the public interest litigation, the behavior-deliver claim is more fitful. Additionally, the separation of the plaintiff and rights-holder makes the legitimacy of the qualification insufficient.From the point of the social management, the relationship between the compensation and the punishment via the civil proceeding method is hard to getting. With the proportion change of the personal interest in the whole interest of the case, the importance of the two functions is moved. Base on the difference of the interest injured by the illegal action, the case can be divided into pure public interest offenses cases, small dispersible offenses cases and large damage offenses cases. In the pure public interest offenses cases and the small dispersible offenses cases, the plaintiff can file both type claims. In the large damage offenses cases, the plaintiff can only file the behavior-deliver claim.