Research On China's Class Actions Of Food Safety

Since Food safety issues have always been closely linked to people's lives.With the economic environment is getting better,people's demand for food has also been upgraded from "satiation" at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China to "health" after Chinese economic reform.Reform have brought about improvements in production efficiency and economic level,but due to the profit-seeking motives of food producers and the lack of supervision by early administrative agencies,food safety accidents in China have occurred frequently.As a result,the credibility of people to domestic foods has declined sharply,overseas purchasing has become more prevail,this phenomenon has brought a crisis to the development of local industries.In order to solve the direct or indirect consequences caused by food safety issues,the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate of China have vigorously promoted class actions of food safety since 2016,China's class actions of food safety has finally been gradually improved in practice and achieved initial results.The class actions of food safety has been fully promoted in China since2017,a large number of legal instruments have been accumulated for research after more than two years of practice.After reading more than 200 verdicts,it can be concluded that the existing system of food safety class actions in China has certain defects in subject of litigation,mode of bearing legal responsibility,legal proceedings,etc.The specific manifestations of these defects in practice include the unreasonable change in the number of cases,the concentration on people's court at the basic level,the types of cases are mostly civil suit collateral to criminal proceedings penal action,the single litigation subject,the lack of adequate prosecution participation without the prosecutor's office,the defendants are concentrated at the end of the industry,the multiple confusing of administrative responsibility and criminal responsibility,the lack of clear system support for the form of liability,and the inadequate execution of pre-litigation procedures.The reason is related to the relatively weak legal basis and judicial interpretation of China's class actions of food safety.Considering these the defects shown in the cases,we can find that there is no complete legal systemfor class actions in China.The relevant regulations are scattered in the "People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights","Food Safety Law of the People ' s Republic of China" and the judicial interpretation of Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate.In judicial interpretations related to class actions,the immaturity of the norms manifested in the following aspects:the description of the qualification for prosecution is relatively general,the investigation of the subject ' s liability just based on the identity,the responsibility-bearing form tends to beat around the bush.Under the influence of these norms where there is still room for discussion,the food safety class actions is hard to diverted from criminal litigation and general civil litigation,and its positioning is not clear yet.In order to solve the problems above,we get the conclusion that class actions of food safety in China can be improved through the following paths after the classification and analysis of more than two hundred sample cases,the summary of practical issues presented in the judgment documents,and the comparison with the civil law systems of major European countries and the United States from the perspective of comparative law:new standards for the jurisdiction of the case should be established,the importance of pre-litigation procedures should be emphasized,the scope of litigation subjects eligible for prosecution should be expanded,the litigation incentive mechanisms should be established,the liability of the responsible party should be logically focused on the expression of the behavior,the apology for compensation requirements,the legal basis for punitive damages and the ultimate attribution of fines should be established.In addition,the law is one of the means to achieve the ultimate goal of food safety,so the establishment of media supervision and prevention mechanisms beyond the law cannot be underestimated.