On The Litigation Cost System Of Environmental Public Interest Litigation Initiated By Environmental Protection Organizations

At present,China is in the critical period of economic transformation,the environmental problems are prominent,and it have an impact on people's production and life.In recent years,the public's attention to environmental issues has been generally increasing,and environmental mass incidents have been constantly occurring.Therefore,the environment public interest litigation arises at the historic moment,safeguard the environment interest.Value diversification and conflict of interest require that the solution of environmental problems must be based on public participation,and the participation of environmental organizations in public interest litigation can fully play the important role of reconciling multiple values and alleviating conflicts of interest.However,due to the high litigation costs,the enthusiasm of environmental organizations in filing environmental public interest lawsuits is not high.The advantages of public interest litigation can not be brought into play.In fact,the litigation costs affect the whole process of litigation,which is not only related to the protection of the parties' litigation rights and the effective operation of the litigation process mechanism,but also related to judicial justice and judicial authority.The litigation has the characteristics of sociality and public welfare.The current litigation cost system is based on private interests,as a result,it cannot be directly applied to it.In order to realize the purpose and function of environmental public interest litigation of environmental protection organizations,a litigation cost system should be established that conforms to the characteristics of public interest litigation.To solve the problem that the litigation cost of environmental groups is too high,first of all,this paper combined with the practice case analysis,collects judgments of litigation filed by environmental protection organizations in China since 2015,and analyzes the legislative status and judicial status of public interest litigation fees,and discusses the existing problems of the environmental public interest litigation fees system in China.The problems of the system are mainly reflected in two aspects: first,the unreasonable application rules of environmental public interest litigation fees.The current legal fee regulations reflect the characteristics of private interests and cannotbe applied to environmental public interest litigation.It includes the collection standard of litigation fees,the burden rule of losing party,and the unreasonable relief system of litigation fees.Second,the public interest litigation incentive mechanism is not perfect.The excessive legal costs of environmental groups can not be effectively transferred to society and the state.Specifically including the environmental public interest litigation legal aid system,the special fund system,the victory award system.Secondly,in order to solve the problems existing in the cost system of environmental protection organizations,based on the research results of public interest litigation cost of environmental groups at home and abroad,this paper analyzes the necessity and basic principles of improving the public interest litigation fee system of environmental groups in China.Based on the theoretical analysis,this paper discusses how to perfect the public interest litigation fee system of environmental protection organizations in China,mobilize the subjective initiative of environmental groups,better protect social public interests,and push the sound development of the public interest litigation.This paper suggests that the improvement of the public interest litigation cost system of environmental groups should start from three aspects: the sharing between the plaintiff and the defendant,the sharing between the society and the state.Improve the legal cost system in the direction of reducing the litigation cost burden of environmental groups and increasing the illegal cost of defendants.The sharing of litigation costs between the original defendants can be divided into two aspects: the burden rule for the victory of environmental groups and the burden rule for the defeat of environmental protection organizations.Social sharing of legal costs includes improving the environmental public interest litigation special fund system and the legal aid system.The state's litigation cost sharing includes establishing an independent standard of environmental public interest litigation cost,the litigation cost relief system,and the success award system.