On Diversification Of Eligible For The Plaintiff In Civil And Public Interest Litigation

For three decades of reform and opening up, in the meanwhile of the China’ssocio-economic development, new social conflicts are also increasingly emerging,such as environmental pollution, consumer infringement, and the interests of thevulnerable groups in society are infringed, such kind of problems emerge in anendless steam. Our country is a statute law country which has limitations make somenew social interests can not be effectively protected, and social and public interestswill inevitably damage, which forms a certain contradiction with building a socialistcore value system and the socialist harmonious society in China. According to ourcurrent theory of the procedure of Civil Procedural Law, when new types of disputeof interests happen, only the “directly interested party” in this dispute has the right tobring a civil action, which apparently has been unable to meet the new situation. Ifthere is no clearly provision in the law, the real injured subjects are often unable tobecome qualified parties, so the just claim is unable to realize. This conflict needs tobe addressed in future legislation and judicial practice.This article starts from the point of view of the civil and public interest litigation,demonstratively reasoning on relevant organs, organizations and individuals as theProper Party in Civil Procedural Law. This paper adopts the method of the empiricalanalysis and combines typical case occurred in recent years to analyze the main bodyof the civil and public interest litigation which is filed by the procuratorial organs,administrative organization, community groups and individual citizens that iscommon in the judicial practice. This paper is divided into two parts. The first partdescribes the relevant theoretical issues of the civil and public interest litigation,analyzing the theory of the definition, the historical origins and the capacity to be aparty of the civil and public interest litigation, and briefly analyzing the plight of thecivil and public interest litigation in China. The second part, through researching andstudying the civil and public interest litigation in China, the author combines thetypical cases occurred recently in the field of the public interest litigation in China to provide reasons and feasibility of granting some main bodies, such as procuratiorialorganization, community groups, individual citizens, and also provide reasons andfeasibility of strictly restricting certain administrative organizationeligible for theplaintiff in the civil and public interest litigation. This part also analyzes the pros andcons for them to be the plaintiffs of the civil and public interest litigation, and makessome necessary restrictions. The author thought the eligible for the plaintiff in thecivil and public interest litigation should be granted to some social groups, andindividual citizens. In the case of doing well on building relevant programs, theprocuratorial organs also can be used as the plaintiff of the civil and public interestlitigation. For whether the administrative organization can be the civil and publicinterest litigation, there are some controversies. The author thought that under theclearly provisions of the law, strictly limited administrative organization could file thecivil and public interest litigation on behalf of the public interest. In2012, the28thmeeting of the Standing Committee of the Eleventh NPC passed Amendment of CivilProcedural Law added the55thprovision which is relevant to the public interestlitigation into the Amendment. According to this provision, the law authorities andrelated organizations can institute legal proceedings in a people’s court for a behaviorwhich infringe the public interest, such as infringing a number of legitimate interestsof consumers and polluting the environment. Since then,“public interest litigation”terms formally enter into the China’s legal level, and open the door for theconstruction of future civil and public interest litigation system. The eligible for theplaintiff is the first threshold of the proceedings and is the primary element for thelitigation startup programs. Specifically which “organization”,“authority” and“individual” can become the plaintiffs of the civil and public interest litigation alsoneed to explore further in the theory and the judicial practice. We believe that with theefforts of all legal experts and scholars, the civil and public interest litigation systemshould be able to be improved.