Research On The Scrutiny Of Scientific Evidence In Environmental Tort Litigation

As long as there is human activity,there is environmental pollution.Especially in today’s fast industrial development,environmental pollution has become increasingly serious,and environmental infringement disputes have become increasingly numerous and complex.Therefore,scientific evidence has been widely used in environmental tort litigation in various countries.Under the judicial appraisal system in China,the examination of scientific evidence is judged by the judge on the initiation of the appraisal,the selection of the appraiser,and the appraisal opinions.At present,the defects of scientific evidence review and judgment in China’s environmental tort litigation are mainly: First,the review procedure of scientific evidence is not sufficient,including the weak evidence exchange function and the insufficient evidence procedure;secondly,the review standard of scientific evidence is vague.This includes confusion about the identification of the appraisers and inadequate review of the appraisal opinions themselves.The reason is that on the one hand,there is a lack of uniform regulations and reasonable standards,and on the other hand,the judges have made a mistake in understanding the legal provisions in practice.In order to improve the review and judgment of scientific evidence,all countries have taken the approach of strengthening the review and judgment function of judges.In particular,the common law countries have established a review standard centered on the judge’s “gatekeeping” function,and the judges judged the scientific nature of the expert testimony.Similarly,for our country,strengthening the judge’s duty of reviewing and judging scientific evidence is also an inevitable problem.However,it should be noted that the strengthening of the judge’s duties requires a certain external institutional environment,including complete evidence rules,a sound identification system,and related supporting systems.In view of this,this paper will analyze the basic jurisprudence of scientific evidence review and judgment,combined with the status quo of judges in China’s judicial practice to review and judge scientific evidence,propose the regulation of scientific evidence review in China’s environmental tort litigation: First,improve scientific evidence The procedure of evidence discovery,the judge examines the initiation of the appraisal,and organizes the parties to fix the focus of the dispute before the trial;second,improve the cross-examination procedures of scientific evidence,clarify the conditions for appraisers and improve the inquiry system for appraisers;third,improve the unity Management of environmental judicial appraisal;Fourth,the criteria for reviewing the appraisal opinions include the legality standards for the appraisal of opinions,the reliability standards for appraisal opinions,and the criteria for re-evaluation.In the author’s view,only the review procedures and the review standards of scientific evidence can achieve the effective factual determination of judges in environmental tort litigation and achieve environmental justice.