Research On Procuratorial Function Of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

The environmental civil public interest litigation makes one of civil public interest litigations,which means an activity that any state organ,social organization and civilian,according to law,brings a litigation against any subject which renders any action having polluted and damaged or possibly polluting and damaging the environment and claim the subject of the action to bear civil liability,and then the responsible court lawfully brings to trial according to the civil procedure.Such litigation becomes one of the most representative litigations of public interest litigations for virtue of its features of public welfare of interest maintenance,universality of litigation subjects,preventability of system functions,counterweight of both sides of litigation,etc.,In current China,such issues on environment have been increasingly highlighted,including frequent environmental pollutions,serious environmental torts and untimely and insufficient judicial remedies.To reverse the failure situation of traditional environmental protection pattern within the mainland,procuratorial organs in various regions of the mainland have carried out abundant explorations,and newly revised Civil Procedure Law has also included the environmental public interest litigation system,both of which play significant roles in safeguarding the legitimate interests of victims of environmental pollutions as well as environmental benefits.Nevertheless,as the educational circles are still discussing whether or not procuratorial organs are entitled to bring environmental public interests litigations,along with the unknown legislative delegation,the progress that procuratorial organs actively devote themselves into environmental public interests litigations has been proved to be slow.On Jul.2^nd,2015,authorized by Standing Committee of the National People's Congress,the Supreme People's Procuratorate released the Pilot Program on Civil Public Interest Litigation Presented by Procuratorial Organs,which marked a new chapter of public interest litigations.Participation of procuratorial organs in publicinterest litigations will make such litigations more practicable,and also play a relatively positive driving role in improving the overlooked current situation of public interest protection.Opportunities and challenges,however,still exist side by side in public interest litigations and the best access still remains subject to be discovered in practice.Basing on the juridical practice of the environmental civil public interest litigation,I analyzed the juridical dilemmas encountered by procuratorial organs when bringing environmental public interest litigations,and emphasized on the research of theoretical foundation and system construction,thus the functions of procuratorial organs can be better applied and the process of law-based governance can be also driven more efficiently.