The Function and Procedure of the Civil Public Interests Litigation

It is held that the plaintiff competence of the civil public interests litigation should not be based on the theory of prozessstandschaft but rather an issue of the substantive law according to which who has the right to present the civil public interests litigation. Therefore,legislators should grant statutory departments and pertinent organizationsspecific rights to claim by substantive legal rules. Besides,in order to avoid difficulties to prove and distribute monetary damages and to guarantee the independence of pertinent organizations,the civil public interests litigation should be restrained mainly to theright to claim for non- monetary rightswith exceptions of claiming for confiscation of the unlawful profitsand submitting funds. These measures will be helpful to rectify the malfunctions of free markets. Moreover,to enhance the protection standard of public interests,regulations on expansion of res judicata and prohibition of abusive lawsuits should be complemented. On the whole,the civil public interests litigation bears the function ofpreventive protection and supervision,which coexists with other systems such as the discretionary prozessstandschaft,representative litigations and the transfer of creditor's rights with their respective functions of protecting collective interests of unspecified group and individual rights of several specific groups,as well as realizing claim rights for both massive and small damages of many unspecified groups.