惩罚性赔偿适用中的实体正义与程序正义

不同于一般损害赔偿旨在实现救济正义,惩罚性赔偿更侧重实现惩罚正义。在实现实体正义方面,惩罚性赔偿的适用需要法官基于权利保障的理念对私人自治理念的运用加以限制,法官在进行司法裁量时,应贯彻惩罚均衡原则,重点运用比例原则的分析方法确定惩罚性赔偿的数额。在实现程序正义方面,基于保障当事人诉讼权利的目的,法官在审理惩罚性赔偿案件时,应当变通适用民事诉讼制度中的处分原则,采用排除合理怀疑的证明标准。同时,在合议庭组成上,应适当限制依据常识作出判断的人民陪审员的数量。

Substantive and Procedural Justice in the Punitive Damages

Different from the cases of general damages that pursue just reliefs,the punitive damages seek justified punishments.In the realization of substantive justice,the application of punitive damages needs judges to limit the application of private autonomy based on the protection of rights.Judges should follow a fair distribution of punishments when making judicial decisions and determine the amount of punitive damages by the proportionality principle.In terms of procedural justice,for the purpose of protecting litigation rights,judges should apply the punishment principle in the civil procedure law flexibly and adopt the“improved standard of proof”in the civil procedure law when hearing punitive damages cases.At the same time,in the composition of the collegial panel,the number of jurors who make judgments based on commonsense should be appropriately limited.