Public interest litigation (PIL) with the public interest as the trial object is not only dispute settlement activity but also political activity via which the public participate in public affairs, whereby it is necessary to reflect particular political morality and ethics, and to obtain the jurisprudential support. The individualistic litigation mechanism is deeply influenced by liberalism, and the idea of self-determination of the parties and procedural guarantee contained in it has become the fetters on the development of the PIL system. The partially modified mode of paternalistic litigation still cannot solve the fundamental contradiction between public interest protection and public interest representation. The communitarianism represented by communalism and civic republicanism justifies the collective procedure from the perspective of community value and public space, especially the negotianism, which provides a brand new procedural idea, frame, and mode of judgment for PIL, but the abstractness of “public good” limits its theoretical value. The people-centered philosophy on development and the thought of a human community with a shared future provide a value basis and political ethics for China's PIL system in the new era. On this basis, reasonable absorbing of various political philosophies can help the PIL system to realize the values of litigation democracy, due process, litigation efficiency, etc.
The reason why the procuratorial organs can file public interest litigation under the Administrative Litigation Law of the People's Republic of China is to empower the procuratorial organs' legal oversight in the form of litigation, intending to form a legal oversight mechanism between the procuratorial organs and administrative organs. Both the administrative public interest litigation and the procuratorial proposal are included in administrative litigation and thus depend on court judgments. In other words, the extent of oversight is limited under court judgments. Procuratorial organs shall apply the same legality review as the courts. The procuratorial organs shall properly draft the procuratorial proposal under the same criteria of judicial review and not exercise administrative discretion for the administrative organs. The criteria of administrative organs' performance of duties after-action review shall be whether the court is in favor of or against it.
When initiating public interest litigation, the procuratorates often face the dilemma of choosing between the model of administrative public interest litigation (APIL) and the model of civil public interest litigation (CPIL). However, only choosing either model has flaws and shortcomings. Both CPIL incidental to criminal action and that incidental to administrative action are also faced with many confusions and difficulties in concepts and implementation mechanisms. Given the direction of progress, the procuratorates should integrate the inherent institutional advantages of the model of APIL and the model of CPIL to develop an integrated model of procuratorial public interest litigation (PPIL) characterized by oneness and integrity. To this end, revising the dual legislative separation, where the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China and the Administrative Litigation Law of the People's Republic of China separately regulate public interest litigation, is necessary. Formulating a unified “Public Interest Litigation Law” or “Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation Law” to establish an integrated PPIL model has become an inevitable trend.
The smooth development of procuratorial public interest litigation relates to the timing of the procuratorial power, the interaction between the procuratorial power and administrative power, and the procuratorial power and private rights. Regarding the filing of public interest litigation, the people's procuratorates shall not exercise power crossing the line, taking the principle of restraint as the fundamental requirement and goal, and fully coordinating with the nongovernmental actors and helping them develop. Regarding the relationship between the procuratorial power and administrative power, the essential differences between them should be clarified, and the extent and boundaries should be reasonably defined to avoid confusion and a mixture of powers. Regarding the relationship between the procuratorial power and civil rights, we should adhere to the idea of exercising public power to protect civil rights, pay attention to the balance between public interests and private interests, and avoid the excessive pursuit of public interests at the price of ignoring the protection of private interests.
In the face of massive collection and use of personal information in the era of big data, the prevalent cognitive and structural problems have undermined the foundation of personal information self-control. The characteristics and operational mechanisms of big data have limited the utility of such tools (principles) as notice-consent, purpose limitation, and data minimization. Efforts should be made to shift the paradigm from individual control to social protection. The procuratorial public interest litigation is an important mechanism to practice the social control paradigm. The publicity of personal information is the legitimate basis for procuratorial public interest litigation to intervene in personal information protection. Although notable results have been achieved in terms of procuratorial public interest litigation for personal information protection so far, there is still large room for improvement in terms of case type, scope of claims, litigation rules, and ownership of compensation. Although Article 70 of the Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China has responded to the existing problems, the provisions are only roughly generalized ones and can hardly offer specific guidance to judicial practice. In future judicial practice, risk prevention should be treated as the main function of the system. Efforts should be made to find more sources of case clues, simplify antecedent procedures, actively explore preventive public interest litigation, and give full play to the exemplary and leading role of procuratorial public interest litigation. Efforts should also be made to further detail causes of action, avoid simplifying “infringement” into “harm,” implement the reversion of burden of proof, and establish sound supporting systems for punitive damages and compensation management.
The current civil public interest litigation system is based on Article 58 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China as the backbone with expansions of the public interest protection fields in specific laws. It overall focuses on the qualification of the subject of the litigation and the public interest protection fields, and neglects the establishment of substantive rules. In practice, the environmental civil public interest litigation would refer to the substantive rules applicable to the ecological and environmental damage compensation system, while other civil public interest litigations would refer to the substantive rules of tort liability under private law. The governance and non-litigation nature of civil public interest litigation cannot deny the application of the underlying logic of the right to claim. The legislation on public interest litigation should take into account both procedure and substance. Based on clarifying the governance authority of the procuratorial organs for the protection of public interest, the legislation on public interest litigation should provide for the interests of action in civil public interest litigation, the scope of claims, the justifiability of punitive damages, the allocation of the burden of proof, and other issues closely related to the substance.