权益区分保护和违法性要件

关于侵权责任中违法性要件的存废一直存在争议。尽管《民法典》第1165条第1款和先前的《侵权责任法》第6条第1款中均没有出现“不法”的字样,但是权益侵害要件就是违法性的另外一种表达。侵权责任的本质是一种不法行为,这种不法行为既包括主观不法,也包括客观不法,两者合在一起构成一个整体的不法行为。作为客观不法的违法性具有作为主观不法的过错无法替代的功能。与刑法中偏重行为不法不同,侵权责任中构成要件中的违法性只能从结果不法进行判断,否则过错和违法性无法区分。只有清晰地理解违法性、权益侵害和损害之间的关系,我们才能准确理解一般侵权责任的构成要件。

The Differentiated Protection of Rights and Interests and the Element of Illegality

There has long been a debate on whether to accept illegality as one of the constitutive elements of a tort.Though the term“illegality”does not appear in either Article 1165 paragraph 1 of the Chinese Civil Code or its predecessor of Article 6 paragraph 1 of the Tort Liability Law,the element of the infringement of right or interest can be seen as another way of expression of illegality.The key to tort liability is illegal act,containing subjective illegality and objective illegality.The concept of objective illegality has features which can't be replaced by the concept of fault,i.e.,subjective illegality.Different from the criminal law which focuses more on the conduct side of illegality,illegality as a constitutive element of a tort can only be determined based on the result of the conduct,otherwise fault cannot be distinguished from illegality.Constitutive elements of a general tort liability cannot be accurately understood without a clear understanding of the relations between illegality,infringement of right or interest,and damage.