家事诉讼与儿童利益保护

儿童利益是一种身份利益,具有显著的公益性,国家与社会必须给予特殊保护。涉及儿童的家事审判要遵循儿童利益最大化、儿童参与以及儿童优先保护等原则。从我国家事审判立法看,涉及儿童利益保护的规定散见于诸多的法律、司法解释以及政策性文件中,这些规定尽管为家事司法提供了基本的依据,但缺憾亦非常明显,表现为没有上位法的原则性规定,没有形成体系完整、结构合理的专门制度,部分立法规范前后矛盾,缺乏科学性和严谨性,缺乏实现儿童利益最大化的具体程序和相关配套机制。为此,有必要在基本法和部门法层面确立儿童利益最大化的法律原则;保障儿童表达意见权利和诉讼参与权;从司法层面看,确认儿童的诉讼主体地位,确立涉儿童家事案件职权探知、职权调查原则,建立专业化的家事审判机构。通过上述多重举措,真正实现家事审判对儿童利益的充分保障。

Family Litigation and Protection of the Interests of the Child

The interests of the child are conferred based on identity bearing apparent public interest, which should be protected particularly by the state and society. In all actions concerning children, several princi-ples should be conformed to such as the best interests of the child, participation of the child and primary protec-tion of the child. Based on legislations on family courts in our country, regulations on protection of the child’s in-terests are separately formulated in many laws, judicial interpretations and policies. These rules can offer basic legal grounds for family justice but are with obvious shortcomings such as there are no general regulations of prin-ciples at higher legislative level, no particular system with integrated and proper structures, and some legislative norms are contradictory with each other in lack of scientific and rigorous features. Besides, specific procedures and pertinent mechanism for the best interests of the child are absent. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the principle of the best interests of the child in basic laws and laws of pertinent sectors. The rights of the child’s free expression of opinions and participation in actions should be protected. At judiciary level, the child’s litigation status of being the subject should be defined. In family actions concerning children, principles of detection and investigation ex officio should be stipulated and professional family court should be established. All these meas-ure aim to realize proper protection for the interests of the child in family courts.