On The Pre-litigation Procedure Of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation Initiated By The Procuratorial Organ

Ecological environment protection is becoming a more and more serious problem now:It is difficult to contain the pollution incidents only by virtue of moral constraints and using litigation is necessary for relief.In 2012,China's Civil Procedure Law initially established an environmental civil public interest litigation system.Subsequently,in order to strengthen environmental protection,the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the "Pilot Program for Public Interest Litigation by Procuratorial Organs",which allows procuratorial organs to initiate public interest litigation while also setting up special pre-litigation procedures.The pre-litigation procedures are aimed at standardizing the environmental public interest litigation system,maintaining the modesty of procuratorial organs' intervention in public interest litigation,and thus safeguarding the public's environmental interests in all aspects.In environmental civil public interest litigation,first of all,the subjects enjoying public interest litigation rights should be clearly defined,and the sequence of litigation rights for different prosecution subjects is different.Although there is no direct interest between individuals and the public environment,adverse reactions caused by environmental damage are closely related to social members.Social individuals are entitled to protect their environmental rights and interests at any time.In view of their lack of ability,only legal organs,relevant organizations and procuratorates are more suitable to protect environmental public welfare through litigation on behalf of the public.Procuratorial organs must carry out the pre-litigation procedure when intervening in litigation.When other legal subjects are absent or unable to initiate litigation,procuratorial organs can only support other subjects or directly initiate environmental civil public interest litigation.In the environmental civil public interest litigation,according to the nature of the procuratorial power itself and its responsibility to maintain social public welfare and justice,it is necessary to allow the procuratorial organs to participate in environmental public interest litigation since the participation of the procuratorial organs not only ensures that a wide range of environmental rights victims can obtain timely and effective relief,and effecti-vely supervise and rectify environmental violations,but also ensures the standardization and unification of prosecution standards to the greatest extent.It is the inherent need of the law to introduce the environmental public interest litigation into the responsibilities of the procuratorate to protect the value of social fairness and justice,and is conducive to the transition from formal justice to substantive justice in the field of environmental protection.However,as a representative of state power,the procuratorial organs must adhere to the "limited principles" for the protection of the public interest in the environment.The premise that the procuratorial organs are involved in environmental public welfare qualifications is that they can only serve as substitutes.The pre-litigation procedures can be formulated very much.To prevent its abuse of environmental public interest,it is conducive to the procuratorial organs to maintain their own modest,save judicial resources,and make the procuratorial organs have a more clear position and role in the diversified subjects of environmental civil public interest litigation.Through the pre-litigation procedure to make up for the litigation ability of other eligible litigants,giving priority to other entities to file a lawsuit and defending their litigation rights,the purpose of environmental civil public interest litigation is realized to the maximum extent,and achieve litigation benefits.Accord:ing to the current legal provisions of the pre-suit procedure and the practice in recent years,the pre-suit procedure of environmental civil public interest litigation has not played a balanced role in different regions,scopes and types of cases Procuratorial organs of provinces and cities are actively exploring how to better implement the pre-suit procedure.While some achievements have been made,deficiencies and difficulties have also followed.In the preparation of the pre-suit procedure,Procuratorial organs lack corresponding cost accounting mechanism to accurately analyze the necessity of bringing a lawsuit,and the specific operational process of investigation and evidence collection is relatively rough.At the same time,there is a lack of certain supporting measures to protect and standardize it.The cooperation between different lawsuit subjects and procuratorial organs in environmental public interest litigation also needs to be strengthened.Environmental protection is urgent.In case of pollution incidents,ecological damage should be fully restored and remedied within a limited time.The protection of environmental public rights and interests by litigation places great emphasis on effectiveness and strictness.Therefore,the pre-litigation procedure must be able to play a role in improving litigation efficiency,saving public resources and preventing the procuratorial organs from abusing their power,instead of delaying the litigation process,focusing on form and ignoring the actual effect.We should pay attention to the value of the procedure and the continuity of the procedure,thoroughly study the characteristics,importance and main problems in practice of this pre-procedure and further improve the relevant provisions of the environmental civil public interest litigation pre-procedure on the basis of keeping the modesty of the procuratorial organs and saving judicial resources and litigation costs,so as to improve the standardization and operability of the procedure.