公益诉讼,又称罚金诉讼(quitam),它起源于罗马法,是相对于私益诉讼而言的。公益诉讼引起广泛关注是在20世纪,随着科技的进步和生产规模的扩大,人们的生产、生活日益社会化,公害问题日益突出,为了维护国家、社会的利益,公益诉讼被不断重视。 Public interest litigation, also called quitam, originated from Roman law and is relative to private litigation. Public interest litigation has drawn wide attention in the 20th century. With the progress of science and technology and the expansion of production scale, people are becoming increasingly socialized in production and daily life. The public issue of pollution has become increasingly prominent. In order to safeguard the interests of the country and society, public interest litigation has been paid more and more attention.