The Dilemma And Countermeasures Of Environmental Public Interest Litigation System In China

Since the reform and opening up,China's economy has developed rapidly,but the ecological environment is also deteriorating.Environmental rule of law is a powerful starting point for good governance of the ecological environment.As an important rule of law device,environmental public interest litigation refers to the system in which relevant subjects bring lawsuits against environmental illegal acts to the courts when environmental public interest is infringed.It has the characteristics of diversity of subjects,complexity of object of action,prevention of lawsuit purpose,supervision of lawsuit process and particularity of lawsuit procedure.Environmental public interest litigation plays an important role in deterring and curbing environmental violations,protecting the environmental rights and interests of the main body,safeguarding environmental justice and realizing ecological civilization.China's environmental public interest litigation system has undergone three stages of germination,growth and exploration.Although it has achieved remarkable results,there are still many problems.For example,the higher threshold of filing a case for prosecution results in fewer cases,the high complexity of environmental disputes makes it more difficult to obtain evidence,and the high cost of litigation results in the lack of litigation action by all parties.Force and serious enforcement difficulties.The existence of these problems is caused by the deep-seated reasons of legislative design,mechanism principle and power relationship.We must further explore the internal mechanism of the system.In this regard,the partiality of legislation on the subject qualification of environmental public interest litigation,the "dilemma of collective action" caused by the serious shortage of incentive mechanism of environmental public interest litigation,the local protectionism caused by the tendency of local government's corporatization,and the imperfection of environmental damage assessment mechanism lead to the "separation of lines like mountains",which are the environmental public of our country.Benefit litigation is faced with the deep logic of various difficulties.We must identify the cause of the disease and prescribe the right medicine.Therefore,the improvement of environmental public interest litigation in China can be carried out from the following aspects: first,to improve the legislation of environmental public interest as litigation qualification,including clearly granting citizen plaintiff qualification,lowering the threshold of prosecution for social organizations,defining the plaintiff qualification of environmental protection administrative organs,and further improving the Prosecutor System of public interest litigation of procuratorial organs;Further explore the specialization of environmental justice.It is not only necessary to break the restrictions of administrative divisions and try to establish special environmental courts to promote the professional development of environmental judicial team,but also necessary to further improve the mechanism of professional environmental judicial appraisal in China from the aspects of specialized legislation,institutional system,standardization of appraisal technical standards and strengthening supervision.The incentive mechanism of environmental public interest litigation in China is innovated through the establishment of incentive mechanism for plaintiff winning litigation,incorporating environmental public interest litigation cases into the scope of legal aid,and clarifying the attribution of environmental compensation,so as to fully mobilize the initiative of all parties in litigation.Finally,the enforcement mechanism of environmental public interest litigation is improved.Specifically,it includes defining the duty subject and the way of assisting execution of the environmental public interest litigation judgment,perfecting the procedure of assisting execution of the judgment.In addition,it can also improve the system of returning execution of environmental public interest litigation by defining the subject of returning visit,standardizing the procedure of executing returning visit,and defining the legal responsibility of executing returning visit.