我国精神损害赔偿与惩罚性赔偿关系的探讨

Spiritual Damage Compensation and Punitive Damage Compensation

2010年7月1日正式施行的《中华人民共和国侵权责任法》第22条及第47条分别规定了我国精神损害赔偿的基本原则和恶意产品责任的惩罚性赔偿制度,这是我国民事基本法律首次对两制度的明确规定,是我国立法上的重要进步。但同时,因为两种制度在适用范围、适用条件及制度功能等方面多有交叉和重叠之处,在实际同时运用时会带来困惑,但《侵权责任法》及我国此前的相关法律或司法解释中对此均无明晰的规定。

The 'Tort Liability Law of the People's Republic of China' come into force in China on July 1,2010.Article 1 and 47 respectively provide the basic principles of 'compensation for spiritual damage' and the compensation systems of defective product punitive damage.These two legal sanctions are different except for some similarities in terms of scope,condition and function.These similarities may cause confusion in a civil tort case.Should these two sanctions both be used on the same infringer? How should they be applied? This essay tries to put forward several suggestions on this.