| Popularity of motor vehicles also brings about a great number of trafficaccidents as well as great convenience, which presents great threat to people’slife health and property safety. The establishment of China’s compulsory trafficaccident liability insurance for motor vehicles (hereinafter referred to as“compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance”) mitigates economic losses ofthe perpetrator involved in a traffic accident, and gives full play to the protectivefunction of the victim in the accident. However, compulsory motor vehicleliability insurance still has dead zones with respect to guarantee of victims. Assupporting measures for compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance, socialassistant funds for road traffic accident victims (hereinafter referred to as“victim assistant funds”) provides a final emergency assistance approach tospecial traffic accident victims.It has been11years since it was firstly proposed to establish a socialassistance funds system for road traffic accidents in the Law of The People’sRepublic of China on Road Traffic Safety in2003. Viewed from relevant conditionsof implementation of this system in various regions, major significant issuesinclude fund collection, fund management, fund prepayment and other aspects.With rights of claim for assistance funds and relevant executive rules as core clues,this paper makes an analysis and discussion on relevant issues found in presentpractices of assistance fund prepayment. Based on a comparative research onsimilar systems in other regions or countries, rational optimization and perfection isachieved for rights of claim for assistance funds and relevant executive rules,providing better supports and guarantees to full play of functions of assistancefunds and to smooth execution of victims’ rights of claim.The first part gives an analysis on legal implication and nature of rights ofclaim for assistance funds. This part mainly includes relevant researches associatedwith implication and functional orientation of assistance funds for nature of rights of claim for assistance funds. Upon a comparison between assistance funds andseveral other insurances (e.g. commercial insurance and social insurance), thefollowing conclusions are drawn: assistance funds are similar to compulsoryinsurance for motor vehicles, and natures of the two are more inclined topolicy-based insurance. At the same time, this policy-based insurance is narrowsocial policy insurance instead of general economic policy insurance. With respectto functional orientation of assistance funds, the purpose of its establishment,consistent with that of compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance, is to protectbenefits of traffic accident victims. Assistance complementariness,indistinguishable assistance and urgency are taken as implementation rules forassistance funds. It is found in the research on the nature of rights of claim forassistance funds that assistance funds for victims are in essence a conversion ofrights to claim infringement and damages. With respect to the research on itstheoretical source, several theories are used for reference, such as the theory oflegal rights, the theory of liability release and the theory of shared responsibility ofstatutory debt. Upon the research on above theoretical issues, directive guidance isprovided for allocation of executive rules for victims’ rights of claim for assistancefunds in the next part.This second part gives a specific research on victims’ rights of claim forassistance funds and relevant executive rules. As an emphasis of this paper, this partevaluates and analyzes present executive rules for rights of claim from four aspects:executive subject, executive condition, executive scope and executive procedure ofrights of claim. With respect to executive subject of rights of claim, China fails togive rights of claim for assistance funds to victims in relevant laws. Besides, it isirrational to exclude owners of motor vehicles from the executive subject scope ofrights of claim. In the analysis process of researching executive condition of rightsof claim, this paper considers infringement act of the owner of vehicle causing theaccident as precondition for execution of rights of claim. Meanwhile, it is indeedunreasonable for the fact that rescue costs exceeding the limit are defined as one ofexecutive conditions as required by existing laws. It is proposed in this part that the following two circumstances shall be included into executive conditions of rights ofclaim: i) unsound legal relation of compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance;and ii) loss of liquidity of an insurance company. The executive scope of rights ofclaim mainly includes relevant issues related to items and amounts of assistanceclaimed for by victims. According to this paper, it is a great problem for theexisting assistance funds’ failure to stipulate liability limit. In terms of executiveprocedure, it shall follow this sequence: launch–acceptance and audit–funddistribution-right relief.The third part is involved in legislative optimization of rights of claim forassistance funds and relevant executive rules. Specific improvement measurestaken for this issue are expressed in this part by combining research achievementsin the second part and specific conditions in China. In terms of executive rules forrights of claim, it is recommended to give direct rights of claim to victims, make itclear the scope of victims eligible for assistance funds, optimize executiveconditions for rights of claim, add relevant provisions for liability limit, and prepareunified assistance standards. With respect to relevant rules for executive proceduresof rights of claim, it is recommended to simplify materials submitted by victimsand request acceptance flows, shorten the term of audit and payment, and introducelawsuit and arbitration procedures as external supervision procedures of right relief.At last, it is recommended to improve the efficacy of laws related to assistancefunds in terms of macroscopic legislation, and to prepare local rules forimplementation of assistance funds in a microcosmic sense, thereby to provideall-round law and system guarantees to victims executing rights of claim forassistance funds. |
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