Loose Litigation Qualification: The Precondition For The Healthy Development Of The Environmental Citizen Suits

Environmental citizen suits are the suits that every citizen who is interested in protecting the environmental and natural resources can sue the environmental polluters, natural resources destroyers and the administrative department who neglect of duty or do something illegally. Litigation qualification is also called the right to sue, it is the legal right that the individual or the bodies can accuse the other people' s and especially the government' s behaviors. At the present time, in order to impel the environmental citizen suits develop healthily, the first thing is to establish the loose litigation qualification, so as to ensure more and more people can bring an action in court. Establish the loose litigation qualification is very significant for the environmental protection, for it broaden the scope of plaintiffs, and is the precondition for the healthy development of the environmental citizen suits, it is also the realization of principle of justice and principle of prevention first, at the same time, it is convenient for the public participation and it conform with the international trend.Litigation qualification is a problem that belongs to the procedure problems, but at the same time it is restricted with the development of the entity law. There is some strong supports that stand by the loose litigation qualification. Anyone who want to bring a environmental citizen suit must prove that his rights which relate to environment are affected. The so-called "the rights and interests that relate to the environmental" is the contents of the environmental right. The development of Environmental Right Theory impels the development of loose litigation qualification of the environmental citizen suits. The interest of litigation is the link of theprocedure law and the entity law. Traditionally the environmental interests is regarded as the "the reflexible interests" . The development of Environmental Rights Theory treats it as the "legal interests" . So the people whose environmental interests is affected can bring an action because he has the right to sue base on the litigation interests. The people who can sue are not limited to the direct casualties. The practice has occurred in some countries. The Intergenerational Equity Theory has close relation to the Theory of Environmental Rights. The main body of environmental rights consists of the present generation and the future generation. Acknowledging the future generation has litigation qualification is another show of the trend of loose litigation qualification. The citizens who want to sue must meet with some stand of proof. In the environmental suits, the plaintiffs must prove that the defendants' feasance or nonfeasance affect their environmental rights and interests. Relax the standard of proof in environmental torts is a strong support of the establishment of the loose litigation qualification. Besides, the Strict Obligation Principle, Presumption of causality Principle and so on are also the theoretic support of the loose litigation qualification.Natural resources are drying up, the environmental problems are deteriorated day and day. More and more countries and areas have realized the importance of environmental protections. Now many countries' litigation qualifications of environmental suits have take on the loose trend. This title emphasizes the loose litigation qualifications of the Ontario' s environmental bill of rights. The author studies the provisions of EBR and want to make it a mirror to perfect our litigation qualifications of environmental citizen suits. According to EBR, any citizen may bring an action in court where it can be established that some person has or is about to imminently contravene a prescribed regulation or instrument, and the contravention will cause significant harm to a public resource in Ontario. But in past cases where the offending activity affected the whole community,private action might not have been permitted if the problem was deemed a "public wrong " rather than "private wrong" .The EBR effectively removes the public nuisance barrier to the courts. Sectionl03 states that access to the courts will not be barred solely on the grounds that you cannot show your injury is different in kind or degree. EBR extends the scope of public nuisance litigation plaintiffs. The individuals can sue and don' t need to improve that they suffered an injury different in kind or degree. So it endows with the sue rights to more people. It is a manifest of justice principle. It means that a person can go to court and represent not only his own claim, but all the people in the province that have a similar claim. The effectiveness of class action can overspread to all the members of the class if they don' t claim that they quit the class. This provision actually broadens the scope of the potential plaintiffs. Many countries have the practice of giving the environmental protection body litigation standing. Besides, EBR section 47(7) give the third party the right to appeal, so it broadens the rights of public participation.In our country, the provisions about the litigation qualification in the civil procedure law and the administrative procedure law are not good for the healthy development of the environmental citizen suits. Reviewing the Canada Ontario' s the environmental bill of rights and other countries' advanced lawmakings and justice practice, the author think we should use the good practice for reference, establish loose litigation qualification in order to facilitate the healthy development of the environmental citizen suit. In the lawsuit that the defendants are the polluters or the natural resources destroyers, the key is to conform to the international trend, endow with the indirect casualty litigation qualification, assimilate the advantage of the class action to perfect our litigation agent system. At the same time, we should advance the development of the litigation objects, bring the environmental interests into the "the law protective interests" . In the suit that the defendants are theadministrative department, we should give non-administrative opposite litigation qualification. When discussing the special plaintiff, the author thinks the prosecuting attorney can be the public interests vindicator, and has the right to sue for public commonweal. As about to the third party , the author thinks should let the people who have the indirect relation to the litigation objects have the right to participate in the suit which is going on. This practice is good for saving litigation resources, and at the same time can ensure more citizens suit rights.