訴訟收費與司法“公—私”關係再平衡

訴訟收費不僅事關當事人的訴訟負擔及訴權保障，更是塑造司法公共性與私己性關係的關鍵制度變量。自中華人民共和國成立以來，訴訟收費經歷了不收費、亂收費到規範並降低收費三個階段，司法公共性亦同步發生了“U”字形變遷。近二十年來，隨著社會高度私己化特別是唯我式個人主義的興起，低訴訟收費削弱了訴訟活動的成本約束，公共司法資源以顯著低於社會成本的方式被無節制消費，引發司法“公—私”的結構性失衡。提高訴訟收費與“司法為民”並非對立命題，相反有助於維持高度公共性司法的可持續性。在完善司法救助制度的前提下，有必要通過合理提高訴訟收費以恢復訴訟行為的責任結構與成本約束，從而達到司法公共性與私己性的再平衡。這有助於在司法領域促進個體之“私”的成熟，並在“合天下之私以成天下之公”的意義上實現新“天下之公”。

Litigation fees not only concern the litigation burden of parties and the protection of their right of action, but also constitute a key institutional variable shaping the relationship between judicial publicness and private interest. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, litigation fee policies have undergone three stages: no fees, arbitrary and excessive fee collection, and the standardized regulation and reduction of fees. Correspondingly, judicial publicness has undergone a U-shaped evolution. Over the past two decades, amid growing individualization in society, especially the rise of egocentric individualism, low litigation fees have weakened cost constraints on litigation. Public judicial resources have been excessively consumed at a level far below their social cost, resulting in a structural imbalance between judicial publicness and private interest. Raising litigation fees is not contradictory to the principle of justice for the people; on the contrary, it helps sustain the long-term viability of a highly public judiciary. On the premise of improving the judicial aid system, it is necessary to appropriately increase litigation fees to restore the accountability structure and cost discipline of litigation conduct, so as to rebalance judicial publicness and private interest. This will help foster a mature sense of private responsibility in the judicial sphere and realize a new public good in the spirit of“combining all private interests to form the public good of the realm.”