The State Oceanic Administration As The Plaintiff Of Social And Public Interest Litigation

On January1,2013,<the Civil Procedure Law> came into force. The biggestbright spot of the law is that the article55:"the relevant organizations laws rulemay bring a suit to the people’s court about behaviors of polluting the environment,infringing upon the lawful rights and interests of consumers and other ones ofdamaging the social and public interests." The article55has a breakthrough to thetraditional standard which needs the direct relation of plaintiffs with lawsuit interest.And there is the misunderstanding of "social and public interest" in scholars. As aresult, the article55is as the public interest litigation. What’s more, most scholarsthink that China has entered the era of public and interest litigation. But the article55has many difference with the rule of public and interest litigation which the scholarsdiscuss about the scope of prosecution and main body of prosecution as well as theform of the ultimate responsibility, which is not to be equated to public and interestlitigation. Moreover, the actionable behavior of the article55should adopt "threebehavior solution", which shows that the nature of the social and public interests suitis private suit of many people’ interests. And the article55has some forms of publicand interest litigation, but which does not have the most essential characteristics ofpublic and interest litigation----the maintenance of public interest. The article55isstill the civil litigation in essence, which is another civil lawsuit with closing to publicand interest litigation and with being different from traditional civil litigation.The limit of the plaintiff on the article55is too general. In terms of "lawauthority", most people focus on the qualification of the main body and on buildingspecial procedure when procuratorates is as plaintiff. But in fact, there is no legal basis of social and public interests litigation brought by the procuratorates,theoretically there also. On the contrary, the administrative organ has deep relations asa plaintiff of social public and interest litigation. The administrative organ is the directrepresentative of particular interest. And they have the direct responsibility toprotecting the interests. The State Oceanic Administration successfully entered thefield of the social and public interests litigation thinking of the attribute ofadministrative organs.In practice, the State Oceanic Administration has a history of being the plaintiffof civil litigation. One of the most representatives is the "Tasman sea" case inNovember23,2002, which was that the State Oceanic Administration feisty standsout marine ecological damage compensation with plaintiff identity. Although the casein nature is also a civil lawsuit, through detailed exploration, the author found thatthere are many difference with the social and public interests litigation, especially inthe most essential nature with maintaining the interests. The national interest in theMarine Environmental Protection Act (1999) is not the social and public interests inthe article55, in which the "public interest "is not equal to "many interest". As aresult, there is the essential difference on the proposal of suit by directly interestedparty of the prosecution or not. But both belong to the suit of compensation fordamages. The second paragraph of article ninety in the Marine EnvironmentalProtectionAct (1999) is not public and interest litigation.After10years of case the "Tasman sea", the article55strengthens plaintiff’ssubject qualification of the State Oceanic Administration, which provides a law basison the State Oceanic Administration interring into suit of compensation for damages.But because the State Oceanic Administration as not directly interested party filed alawsuit in the article55, which will bring inevitable shortcomings comparing to alawsuit being brought on the Marine Environmental Protection Act (1999). Under theexisting system of civil lawsuit, the article55gives the State oceanic Administrationthe plaintiff qualification of social and public interest litigation. This causes theconflict in the existing relief way with the battle of representative lawsuit. And thisalso can bring certain extent affect on litigation rights direct interests body has, which weakens the advantage of the State Oceanic Administrations plaintiff. As a result,there are more disadvantages with giving plaintiff qualifications of the social andpublic interest litigation to the State Oceanic Administration. The article55deviatesfrom the public interest litigation, which more gilds the lily for the relief way ofself-interest. The relief for private interest should rely mainly on traditional civillitigation relief way. And the article55should make the transition to the real publicinterest litigation.