| Article 1 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation Cases,which came into effect on January 1,2021,continues to clarify that litigation can be filed against "acts that have harmed the public interest or have a major risk of harming the public interest" and polluting the environment or destroying the ecology.Therefore,preventive environmental civil public interest litigation realizes forward-looking judicial protection by providing a path to realize the transformation from "response-relief" to "prediction-prevention",rationalizing the prior protection of environmental public interests and clarifying the corresponding rights and obligations allocation mechanism.However,the legislative provisions on preventive environmental civil public interest litigation are only clarified in principle,which leads to different understandings of preventive litigation in theory,resulting in judges often inconsistent in the initiation of litigation procedures in preventive environmental civil public interest litigation,the relevance of preventive claims,and the confirmation of true causal relationships,adopting diversified and even contradictory methods.In view of this,this paper intends to take the actual picture of the application of the rules of proof in preventive environmental civil public interest litigation as a logical starting point,comprehensively analyze,summarize and summarize the rules of proof and the application dilemma of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation cases through case studies,data analysis and other research methods,and present the corresponding research results with a large number of charts.Taking the simplification of the proof rules for preventive environmental civil public interest litigation as the logical main line,the author explores whether simplified proof methods such as apparent proof,groping proof,indirect rebuttal evidence,and bottom-line proof can be applied in the absence of sufficient basis,and how the plaintiff and the defendant can apply them in stages in the judgment process of preventive claims,namely the initiation of procedures,correlation analysis,and confirmation of causation,hoping to make useful explorations on the improvement of the proof rules for preventive environmental public interest litigation.Construct a reasonable approach to proving simplification,so as to provide effective guidance for judges to apply.The first part realizes a panoramic description of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation by tracing the institutional origin and proof rules of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation,which proves that in current judicial practice,the main problems in preventive environmental civil public interest litigation include: unclear legislation hinders the realization of the "preventive" function,and unclear procedures restrict the realization of the "preventive" function.The second part admits the practical observation of the application of the rules for proof of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation,that is,by collecting cases involving the content of preventive claims since Article 1 of the Judicial Interpretation on Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation,and analyzing them as a whole,individualized and subjective,it is clear how to achieve the judicial protection function of "preventing problems before they occur" when environmental risks are widespread,and it is urgent to improve the proof rules for preventive environmental civil public interest litigation.The third part starts from the perspective of the actual needs and comparative reference of the proof rules for preventive environmental civil public interest litigation,and deeply considers how to effectively learn from the existing proof methods,such as apparent proof,groping proof,indirect rebuttal evidence,preponderance evidence,etc.,so as to realize the simplification and improvement of the existing proof rules for preventive environmental public interest litigation in the current risk society.The fourth part,starting from the improvement of the proof rules for preventive environmental public interest litigation,considers that in the case of pre-existing prevention and pre-emptive prevention,whether it is initiation criteria,correlation analysis or confirmation of causation,it should be improved in accordance with different proof rules,so as to truly realize the core function of "prevention before it occurs". |
