The Exceptional Procedural Rules in the Civil Proceedings for the Public and Collective Interests

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K03470
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Civil law
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Takada Masahiro 早稲田大学, 法学学術院(法務研究科・法務教育研究センター), 教授 (50171450)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 公益 / 集団的利益 / 職権探知主義 / 人事訴訟 / 民事訴訟 / 超個人的利益

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Certain civil procedures, which search for super-individual interests such as public interests and collective interests, have their exceptional procedural rules. For example, litigation procedures for family affairs, non-litigation procedures and group litigation procedures related to consumer interests have their own special procedural rules concerning the gathering materials on the lawsuits, the effects of the judgement. The project aims to examine if it is necessary to apply exceptional procedural rules because their aim is to protect super-individual interests, by comparing civil proceedings in Japanese law with those in German law, which had a great influence on Japanese legal system. As a result, it was recognized that the special rules represented by judge’s investigation in both countries are being diversified and relativizing today, and its uniform application needs to be reexamined.

Free Research Field

社会科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

民事訴訟をはじめとする民事裁判は、伝統的に個人の権利保護を目的する手続として構築されているが、他方で、個人の権利の保護を超えた公益や集団的利益などの超個人的な利益の保護を担う場面もあり、その範囲は今日、拡大傾向にある。この状況の下では、超個人的利益の保護について民事裁判が今後どのような役割を担っていくかを考えていく必要が、ますます大きくなる。本研究は、民事裁判の手続が、個人の権利や利益に還元できない超個人的利益の保護を担う際に、あるべき裁判手続の規律を考察したものであり、現在の民事裁判の規律を精査し、今後の同規律のあるべき方向を考えるうえでの出発点を提供するものと考える。