The Research On Futher Perfection Of The System Of The Environmental Public Interest Litigation

The environmental public interest litigation started early in America and European countries, and developed perfectly there. The environmental public interest litigation in China is based on the combination of the reference to foreign legislation and the research of the domestic situation. The research of foreign legislation of the environmental public interest litigation is meaningful for protecting environmental public interest, and normalizing Chinese system of the environmental public interest litigation.The civil procedure law(2012)stipulates the environmental public interest litigation for the first time. But it’s just a principle stipulation. After2years’exploration on legislation and practice on judiciary, the newly revised Environmental Protection Act states that non-governmental environmental protection organizations which meet some conditions could file a lawsuit of environmental public interest litigation. In2005, the Supreme People’s Court issued The Supreme People’s Court’s Judicial Interpretation on the Civil Environmental Public Interest Litigation Cases to explain some issues of applicable law. This judicial interpretation stipulates the requirements of prosecution, the jurisdiction, litigation costs and so on in detail.But as a new type of modern litigation, the environmental public interest litigation contains the criminal environmental public interest litigation, the civil environmental public interest litigation, and the administrative environmental public interest litigation. There are some defects about the latter two litigation on current situation of legislation and judicial practice.As a result, this article discusses the problem of the plaintiff qualifications, the problem of distribution of burden of proof, the problem of proof standard, and so on, by comparing the different legislation of the environmental public interest litigation in some countries including America, England, German, Japan, India and French, whose system the civil environmental public interest litigation is more perfect.The logical structure of this article is as follows: Part1is about the fundamental theory of the environmental public interest litigation. This part is about the origin and development, the theoretical basis, the meaning and characteristics, and of the environmental public interest litigation.Part2is about the systems of the environmental public interest litigation of common law countries and the civil law countries.Part3is about the current situation of legislation, the judicial practice and defects of the environmental public interest litigation in China. After an analysis of the legislation of the environmental public interest litigation, I find some defects of this system such as the citizens’ out of range of the subjects of the environmental public interest litigation, the undefined administrative environmental public interest litigation, and the improper intervention of executive power to judicial power.Part4is about the exploration of the future development of the system of the environmental public interest litigation in system construction, subject construction, and procedure construction.Part5is the conclusion.