Study On Civil Compensation System Of Food Safety

Food safety is the basis of human healthy living. However, wave after wave ofvicious food safety incident threaten the safety of people’s life. Food safety hasbecome a major problem for human beings who cannot be avoided. But, in foodsafety incidents, consumers are always in a weak position, when they suffered damage,they cannot be well protected.In practice, food safety civil compensation system itself is not much differencewith the general civil compensation system, which is applicable provisions of the"Tort Liability Act" and "Food Safety Law" in general tort liability. By analysis civilcompensation system for food safety, the author believes that civil compensationsystem of food safety problems mainly in four aspects: The principle of civilcompensation priority, Subject of civil compensation, punitive damages and theburden of proof system.The principle of civil compensation priority gives priority to civil liability in avariety of co-exist responsibilities. As it stipulates too vague, and lack realisticoperational in the relevant provisions of substantive law and procedural law, civilcompensation is often not takes precedence in practice. Therefore, the author proposessome suggestions for improvement to solve these problems.The civil compensation subject bears tort liability directly. Consumers can godirectly to the main claim when they suffer the food Infringement damage. However,in the event of a large-scale food infringement, due to the uncertainty of the subject ofcompensation, the compensation body lacks ability to provide compensation, whichincreases the difficulty for consumer claims, and whether the state can be to thecompensation body in some extent is a question. Therefore, the article takes theseproblems as a focus of discussion."Food Safety Law" Article96, paragraph2, states: production does not meetfood safety standards or sells knowingly do not meet food safety standards.Consumers can request demand compensation for damages, and also request theproducers or distributors paid ten times the price of the compensation. This is China’spunitive damages system in the "Food Safety Law". Though analyzing this subsection,the author find some unreasonable in the identification of the violations, illegalsubjective state, and compensation calculated way. Therefore, there need to improvespecific issues. The burden of proof and the ability is closely related to consumers to receivecompensation. In the case of food safety, Victims must bear the burden of proofrelating to litigation to obtain civil compensation. However, since the food has a highdegree of technical and professional, as well as the victim in a vulnerable position inthe food cases, they face the problem of high cost and difficulty of burden of proof inlitigation. The author starts from these two issues to propose specific measures tosolve these problems.The above four aspects are around the civil compensation to expand. Each otheris organic links and unit in civil compensation system. The author chose these fourimportant aspects to research, analyzing the existing problems, and putting forwardsome sound advice, so that the victim will be able to get compensation quickly andefficiently in food safety accident, and protect the victim’s legitimate rights andinterests.