Public Interest Litigation Research

At its beginning, this thesis introduced and analyzed the new development of "civil public interest action" in Chinese judicial practice of recent years. Based on this, it made a research on the historical origin, legal basis and value of this kind of litigation and demonstrated the necessity and ways of rebuilding the system of the litigation. Finally, the author made a detailed theoretical analysis of the foundation of the system of civil public interest action filed by prosecutor and presented my opinions on the design of the system. This thesis consists of the part of Introduction and four Chapters.In the part of Introduction, based on the analysis of typical cases, I demonstrated that the protection for public interest has fallen into the field of civil litigation while the protection mechanism of multiple ways shall be the destined choice for perfecting the protection mechanism of public interest.Chapter One is an overview of Civil Public Interest Litigation. In this Chapter, I introduced and compared the concepts of Public Interest, Public Interest Litigation and Civil Public Interest Litigation firstly. Then I made a comparison research on the origins of this kind of litigation in the Common Law System and the Civil Law System, concluding that this kind of litigation evolved from Rome Times while the modern system of Public Interest which attracts comprehensive attention shall have its origin in the transition period to monopoly capitalism.Chapter Two is about the basis of rebuilding the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation in China. In this Chapter, I made a general introduction of the current situation of the system in China and the lack of current legislation firstly, then I analyzed the necessity of rebuilding the system by borrowing foreign legal theories and introducing the new developments in Chinese judicial practice. Companied with the above analysis, I explained the theoretical basis of Civil Public Interest Litigation and made a conclusion that rebuilding the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation shall be a quite necessary and urgent task in China.Chapter Three is about the design of rebuilding the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation in China. In this Chapter, I set out the principles of this system and pointed out that the precondition and the settlement of the bottleneck of the system should be enlarging the scope of plaintiff of Civil Public Interest Litigation firstly. Then I listed various kinds of this litigation accordingly. Finally I presented my opinions on the burden of evidence, the burden of litigation fees, the foundation of the fund of Public Interest Litigation, the Penalty Mechanism and the reform of representative litigation method and made corresponding design.Chapter Four is about the analysis and design of the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation Filed by Prosecutors. In this Chapter, after restating the necessity of rebuilding Civil Public Interest Litigation, I pointed out that the lack of the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation Filed by Prosecutors was a deviation from the current international trend of judicial development and the current economic situation in China. I also demonstrated in this Chapter that the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation Filed by Prosecutors should be a very important part of the system of Civil Public Interest Litigation. At the present stage, it shall be more feasible to endow prosecutors the power of filing such litigation as the first step, which shall be also beneficial to the healthy and sustainable development of social economy. Based on this, I made relevant design on the scope of filing cases, investigation and presenting evidence and supervision on litigation accordingly.