Research On Expert Assistant System In Environmental Justice

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economic development has made considerable progress.However,the problem of environmental pollution and ecological destruction has become increasingly prominent.The number of environmental disputes is increasing rapidly.Environmental litigation cases are usually more than complex and often involve issues such as identification of pollutants,damage assessment,identification of causation,and environmental ecological restoration programs.Those highly specialized and technical cases,usually need to be judged by the perspective of professional and technical expertise.The identification of the cases usually play a crucial role in determining the facts of the cases.Nevertheless,in the face of increasing complexity and specialization,simply relying on the judicial appraisal system can not meet the needs of judicial practice for specialized knowledge,nor can it solve the problem of difficult appraisal in the environmental justice.Moreover,lacking of expertise of the judge influences the fair of trial.Therefore,our country has established an expert support system.At present,our country’s current legislation and related judicial interpretations presuppose the “professional knowledge person” as the expert’s legal terminology to preliminarily define the framework of the expert assistants system.But this expression has the suspicion that the position is ambiguous,so that some scholars confuse it with The Expert Witness System.And the current legislation lacks specific and related supporting institutional arrangements.In the field of environmental justice,Article 15 of the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Civil Public Welfare Lawsuits issued by the Supreme People’s Court in 2015 and Article 9 of the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases of Environmental Tort Liability Disputes,both of them have stipulated the system of expert assistants which can clarify the expert assistants in environmental litigation may rely on experts’ opinions,causation,ecological restoration methods,ecological environmental restoration costs,and damage to the ecological environment to restore service functions during the restitution.Expert opinions are put forward,and expert opinions are cross-examined and can be used as a basis for ascertaining facts.As a result,the function and effectiveness of the expert assistant’s opinions can be determined,but the criteria for qualification examination and the procedures for participating in the trial are still lacking clear regulations,which has caused difficulties in the implementation of the system in the environmental judicial practice and has extremely weakened the proper functions of expert assistant system.Therefore,some local courts in China,based on their experience in judicial practice,have summed up the relevant management methods for the operation of the expert assistant system in environmental justice,and established a provincial eco-environmental trial technical consulting expert database to hire expert assistant in environmental areas who can reduce the burden of the court’s review of the qualifications of expert assistants in litigation.In the mean time,the rights and obligations of expert assistants have been clarified,making it possible for the expert assistants to exercise their rights and the work content is clear and specific.The summaries of experience in these provinces have very high reference value for improving the system of expert assistants in China’s environmental justice.In view of the current status quo of implementation,it is necessary to improve the legislation and detail the system and enhance operability.For example,adopting more relaxed standards in qualification examination;expanding the scope of application of the expert assistance system and advance the time for experts to participate in environmental disputes before the trial;clarifying the rights and obligations of expert assistants,and expanding the boundaries of expert assistants’ rights so that they have the right to understand and witness the entire process of appraisal on behalf of their own parties.Through the improvement of a series of specific rules,the role of the expert assistant system in the field of environmental justice will be work well to achieve its procedural value of advancing fair case adjudication,and effectively solve the problem of difficulty in identifying professional issues in environmental justice.