The Standing To Sue Of "Taxpayers’ Suits" In American Laws

It has been more than 170 years since the trial of taxpayers’ suits to theory maturity in American courts.In Frothingham v.Mellon(hereinafter referred to as the Frothingham Case)in 1923,the Federal Supreme Court of the United States held that"the injury apportioned to each taxpayer is negligible".Since then,the review of standing to sue of taxpayers has set a strict and prudent general tone.In the case of Flast v.Cohen(hereinafter referred to as the Flast Case)in 1968,the Federal Supreme Court held that the defendant violated the Principle of Establishment Clause,and thus created an exception to support standing to sue of taxpayers.However,the subsequent cases carefully restricted of the use of this exception.In addition,in American taxpayers’ suits,we can find that the level of government will affect the determination of the standing,and the attitude towards the standing of the Federal Supreme Court and the state courts is also different.In 1982,Valley Forge Christian College v.Americans United for separation of church and state(hereinafter referred to as the Valley Forge Christian College Case)established requirements of the standing,including injury,causation and redressability.First of all,Injury Requirement requires that the injury is specific and factual instead of minor or uncertain.It should be noted that the courts recognize the mental injury in some suits.Secondly,Causation Requirement demands that there is a logical relationship between the injury and the accused government act,including the "TwoPronged Nexus Test" and the Fairly Traceable Standard.Finally,the Requirement of Redressability requires that remedy measures should be effective.However,these requirements are more stringent for taxpayers’ suits,which makes the taxpayer unable to obtain the standing to sue in most cases.The scholar Richard M.Re divides the taxpayers who file a lawsuit into "superior plaintiffs" and "inferior plaintiffs",and priority plaintiffs could have standing to sue.Meanwhile,he puts forward the theory of"relative standing",that is,to reduce the strictness of the requirements of taxpayers’standing to sue,only to ensure that the taxpayers are related to the case,so as to protect the litigation right of each taxpayer.In addition to the requirements of standing to sue of taxpayers’ suits,the judgment often takes relevant theories into consideration.These theories include the respect for the exercise of administrative power,the modest theory of judicial review,the perspective of administrative public interest litigation supporting the standing,and the significance of financial supervision.From the perspective of administrative power and judicial review,we should ensure the administrative discretion and prevent judicial review from interfering too much in the process of administrative decision-making.These two theories restrict the standing to sue of taxpayers.However,from the perspective of administrative public interest litigation,taxpayers’ suits have the nature of public interest litigation and should not require personal injury too much.American law provides incentives for taxpayers to sue.From the point of view of the significance of financial supervision,taxpayers’ suits are conducive to protecting the taxpayer’s financial supervision right and preventing the abuse of government funds.These two theories advocate the expansion of the standing to sue of taxpayers.This paper studies the historical development and requirements of taxpayers’ suits in American law,hoping to provide a useful reference for the construction of taxpayers’suits in China.The innovation lies in the division of the historical development stages of taxpayers’ suits according to the important cases,and the dialectical discussion of the standard of requirements of taxpayers’ suits.The main point is that we should take the improvement of the requirements of taxpayers’ suits as the premise of the construction of the system,and provide possibilities for taxpayers to exercise their financial supervision rights and protect their private rights.