共同诉讼抑或群体诉讼——评我国代表人诉讼的性质

我国《民事诉讼法》司法解释将该法第54条规定的代表人诉讼界定为共同诉讼是值得商榷的。如果按此推论,该法第55条确立的代表人诉讼又处于“休眠”状态的情况下,我国就基本上没有什么群体诉讼了,这显然不符合实际情况,也与法院每年处理几十万件群体诉讼案件的统计数字不符。从其产生所适应的条件、所借鉴的国外同类制度以及自身的特点和功能来看,我国《民事诉讼法》确立的两种代表人诉讼均已突破了共同诉讼的范畴,在性质上都应属于单一诉讼和共同诉讼之外的第三种诉讼形式——群体诉讼。

Joint Action or Class Action: On the Nature of Representative Action in Chinese Civil Procedure Act

It is controversial that the Civil Procedure Act of the PRC and the Judicial Interpretation define representative action in Article 54 of the Act as joint action.If so,no class action would exist in China for representative action in Article 55 is in “dormancy.” It clearly contradicts with reality and the statistical figure that shows that each year courts will handle several hundred thousand class action cases.Judging from their origins,similar foreign systems that they refer to and the characteristics and functions of their own,this author is sure that the two kinds of representative litigation in China's civil procedure law have gone beyond joint action and should be deemed to be by nature a third lawsuit-——class action rather than several action or joint action.