Discussion On Citizen’s Bringing Environmental Public Interest Lawsuit

As China’s environmental problems become more and more serious with the economic development,a large number of environmental pollution and ecological destruction events continue to occur,seriously damaging the people who depend on the environment to survive.Citizens began to pay attention to the protection of environmental interests and pursue a healthy environment.This promoted the establishment and development of environmental public interest litigation system.In 2012,China’s environmental public interest litigation,in the newly revised civil procedure law,was established,which provides a legal basis for the subject of such litigation.The new environmental protection law of 2015,the civil procedure law of 2017 and the administrative procedure law of 2017 bring environmental organizations and procuratorial organs that meet certain conditions into the scope of the plaintiff in such litigation,but exclude the citizens who should be the plaintiff main body of such litigation.It has to be said that this is a defect of the plaintiff subject system of environmental public interest litigation in China.Citizens are the most direct receivers of the damage to the public interests of the environment,and the ultimate bearers of the environmental damage.They are highly sensitive to the changes in the environment they live in.The wide number of citizens plays an important role in the supervision of environmental protection.Granting the plaintiff qualification to citizens in environmental public interest litigation not only enriches the means of environmental public interest maintenance,urges environmental law enforcement departments to conscientiously fulfill their environmental responsibilities,but also promote the development of this lawsuit healthily and comprehensively.This paper mainly studies the plaintiff qualification of citizens in environmental public interest litigation,and demonstrates from the following four parts :The first part is the status quo and problems of environmental public interest litigation filed by Chinese citizens.Based on the typical cases of citizens bringing such lawsuits,this paper introduces the current situation that Chinese legislation excludes citizens,and then analyzes the reasons why Chinese legislation does not grant the qualification of citizen plaintiff,and points out the problems caused by the absence of the main body of citizen plaintiff.The second part is the theoretical thinking of the citizen engaging in the environmental nonprofit lawsuit,including theoretical research and practical research.The theory of citizen’s environmental right,the theory of expansion of litigation right,the theory of environmental public trust and the theory of procedural parties provide the theoretical basis for the legitimacy of citizen plaintiff.In practice,the citizens’ consciousness and action of safeguarding their rights,the shortcomings of the existing plaintiff,and the local system’s exploration on the citizens’ proper release of the plaintiff’s qualification have proved necessarily and feasibly.The third part is the extraterritorial system investigation of environmental nonprofit litigation brought by citizens In this part,by introducing the American citizen’s lawsuit,the Indian constitutional lawsuit on environmental rights and the Japanese public nuisance lawsuit,the author compares the differences of the three countries’ citizens’ environmental public interest lawsuit system,and summarizes the advanced experience that China can learn from.The fourth part is the construction of our citizens to filed environmental nonprofit litigation recommendations.This part,based on the current situation that the plaintiff category of environmental public interest litigation in China lacks citizen subject,attempts to construct the basic system of environmental public interest litigation filed by Chinese citizens from the aspects of basic system,special rules and incentive measures,and tries to solve the problem of citizens’ abuse of litigation and lack of incentive to sue in the system.The article will research the legitimacy of civil environmental public interest litigation necessarily and feasibly from the aspects of theory and practice,and reference appropriately outside provisions on environmental public interest litigation plaintiff qualification.Finally,proposes the establishment of the civil environmental public interest litigation system,based on our country concrete national condition,in the legislative and judicial aspects to our country,hoping to promote the our country’s developed environment sound.