Research On The Perfection Of Public Interest Litigation For Food Safety In China

With the progress of science and technology, human survival food by food additives added or improved packing can be extended shelf life or to add flavor, to traditional food can not match the height. But with the process of globalization and of the food production process becomes more and more complex, the sources of the raw materials in the world, the scope of sales is more and more widely, if there is a link due to the addition of harmful substances and safety issues, risk spreading quickly let people it is hard to imagine.However in the security at the end of the consumers or because of information asymmetry and to glimpse the risk where, or difficult to grasp because of conclusive evidence, or because with the strength of the producers and business operators disparities, resulting in difficult to through the effective way to protect their legitimate rights and interests. Consumers usually by unsafe food infringement, would rather choose to tolerate in silence, is not willing to sue for damages, because this is the consumer, after weighing the risks and benefits to make a rational choice:first of all, because food is generally cheaper, harm is not significant, amounting to litigation is not high, but to consume a large amount of litigation fees, appraisal fees, lawyer expenses, compared, consumers will usually give up to go to court. Secondly, ordinary food infringement litigation odds in favor of consumers is very small. Consumers by virtue of his own company with big challenges, in the burden of proof identified a causal link is very difficult, consumers have to bear much of the burden of proof, ability and do not match. Finally, unsafe food often exist hidden and across time and space, even if there are individual consumers favor, it is difficult to form a scale, other victims still in a helpless state.So the law calls for a new litigation system, namely food tort litigation system to protect consumers’ legitimate rights and interests of the large group. Based on the current situation of food infringement suffered consumers in-depth analysis, put forward basic idea of constructing China’s food tort litigation system, is divided into the following five parts:The first part is about the definition of the relevant concepts of the food tort public interest litigation. This part mainly introduces the concept of food, namely after processing, production and sales for, something can be for human consumption; food concept of tort, which happened in the field of food, endangering food safety violations; and then the nature of food tort litigation were defined, namely in modern consumer market, in accordance with the laws and regulations authorized can bring the subject of public interest litigation, for food manufacturers, processors or operators violate specific consumer food safety the public interests of the illegal acts, according to the relevant laws and regulations to the court prosecution investigation behavior legal liability in the lawsuit activity in general.The second part analyzes the present situation and the existing problems of the system of public interest litigation in the food tort in our country. From the general and current legislation is not clear and there is no food tort litigation case precedent judicial present situation of, and points out that such as stricture of litigation subject qualification of our country food tort litigation system, social organizations and individual citizens of the litigation qualification is not clear; tube jurisdiction is not clear, level and district jurisdiction of the dual conflict; burden sharing injustice, the consumers of the heavy burden of proof; the plaintiffs burden of litigation expenses is overweight.The third part is the extraterritorial experience of tort litigation system of public food inspection, the chapter introduces American group lawsuit system, group litigation system in Germany and Japan’s consumer litigation system. And in the last section summarizes the extraterritorial investigation of the enlightenment to our country.The fourth part puts forward the preliminary idea of constructing China’s food tort litigation system. This chapter discusses the basic principles of constructing legal system of tort public food, namely civil public interest principle, multi participation in applicable principles and the principle of comprehensive law. Procedures are proposed for the improvement, such as the main body should include Procuratorate, social organizations and individual citizens; jurisdiction should be dominated by the intermediate people’s court where the defendant has his domicile, allow for exceptions exist; burden of proof burden of proof shall be adjusted according to the different of the plaintiff; litigation expenses bear should also according to the plaintiff of the main different points of relieve the plaintiff’s litigation costs.The fifth part puts forward the construction of security system of China’s food tort litigation supporting. Such as the incentive of prosecution, food safety liability insurance system, the national compensation fund system.