The Investigation Of Combination Of The Public Interest Lawsuit Brought By Consumers’ Association And The Personal Interest Lawsuit

Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China (2012 Amendment) stipulated in Article 55 that when consumer public interests are violated, the laws specified authorities and relevant organizations can make public interest litigation. From then on, public interest litigation system in China has realized the historical spanning. Consumer Protection Law Amendment approved in 2013 regulated that consumers’association can bring public interest litigation. Public interest litigation rights have made a new breakthrough in the substantive law and the consumers’ association has legal basis to protect public interest. For the violation of consumer of rights and interests, the consumer still can file a personal interest lawsuit. If both consumers’association and the consumer sue against these harmful actions at the same time, shall these two lawsuits be combined together? Judicial interpretation of environment protection public interest lawsuit approved by the Supreme Court is not allowed. The author thinks the public interest lawsuit brought by consumers’ association and the personal interest lawsuit shall be combined. Through the combination, it not only helps to find out the facts of cases, but also reduce the waste of judicial resources. In this view, the author will focus on the combination problems and relative procedure regulation of the public interest lawsuit brought by consumers’ association and the personal interest lawsuit. This paper is mainly divided into three parts:In the first part, this paper mainly discusses the basis and practical significance of combination of the public interest lawsuit brought by consumers’association and the personal interest lawsuit. The relationship of consumers’public and personal interest is that of the whole and the part. The public interest lawsuit and personal interest lawsuit is related to each other. Their combination is accord with the value aim of procedure law-- justice, efficiency and profitability. The combination of the public interest lawsuit brought by consumers’association and the personal interest lawsuit brought by consumers, will be helpful to properly guarantee the consumers’ legal rights and interests, be useful to collect the evidences, benefit the justice fairness, maintain the legislation unity and prevent contradictory sentence.In the second part, this paper mainly analyzes the characters of litigations combination. The combination is joined by the public interest lawsuit and the personal interest lawsuit instead of the joiner of two private interest lawsuits. They are normal common lawsuits and should be combined compulsorily.In the third part, this paper states the specific operations to improve the combination of the public interest litigation by consumers’ association and the personal interest lawsuit brought by consumers. This part, including three aspects, demonstrates the rationality of merge jurisdiction to solve the litigations combination of consume public and personal interest lawsuits. It also demonstrates the burden of proofs distribution and appropriate allocations of compensation, which can optimize the consumers’ association function on maintain the public interests and compensate the damaged private interests meanwhile.