On The Statutory Circumstances Of Prosecutorial Supervision Over The Civil Mediation Agreement

As judges pay moreattention to civil mediation in civil trials and the human relations in society tend to be more complicated,more and more mediation agreements have been used to damage interests of the nation, the public or any other person. There was no clear rule for the prosecutorial supervision of civil mediation until the Civil Procedure Law has been modified in 2012. The Supreme People’s court even ruled out the prosecutor’s power directly in a reply to “whether courts should accept the People’s Procuratorate’s protest for civil mediation” in 1999,for there is no authorization in Civil Procedure Law.But this system was established as legislative level in 2012,based on the revision of the Civil Procedure Law. To be specific, Rule. 208 states that the People’s Procuratorate should protest or make some suggestion if the mediation agreements are harmful to national interests or public interests. In addition, according to Rule. 201&209,the People’s Procuratorate can also take action based on the parties’ request, since the court rejects the retrial application of mediation agreements made out of voluntary and legal principle. The judicial interpretation of the People’s Procuratorate has added the supervision of mediation agreements that do not conform to the voluntary and legal principle.The prosecutorial supervision of civil trials used to cause so much dispute that the supervision of mediation needs much more argumentation. It should be defined strictly for the provision is so abstract and vague. It is difficult to define and distinguish between national interest and public interest. As the nation’s legalsupervision, the procuratorate should exercise its supervision over civil trials, which certainly contain civil mediation. However, mediation agreements always depend much more on the parties’ autonomy than judges.The essence of supervision is in fact power supervision, or to say, control over the judicial power. So it should be strictly limited in case of intervening private rights. Therefore the research should be put in certain social relations, combined with the civil mediation system and the general principles of civil prosecutorial supervision system.To make it clear for the supervisory objects, the writer will discuss the collective interestand the third party’s interests as an extension.Collective interests and the third party’s interests are always set as the limits of civil autonomy in law, which have essential differences from national interest and public interest andhave certain litigants. At the same time, the Civil Procedure Law has already set the suit of the third party discharging the judgment as specific relief. So supervision must be limited within the framework of "limited supervision".It should be emphasized that the prosecutorial supervision has been aiming at judicial power, while strengthening the supervision during the revision of Civil Procedure Law. In the field of civil litigation, the parties shall be highly respected. At the same time, constructing the capability of judicial officers may solve problemsfrom the origin. Only after this can we improve the civil litigation system, and achieve the vision of judicial reform.