Procuratorial Organs Filed Burden Of Proof In Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

At present,China is facing severe situations such as tightening environmental resource constraints,severe environmental pollution,and degradation of ecosystems.It is imminent to implement effective supervision of environmental governance issues and to play the role of law in environmental torts.In recent years,infringements on the environment,especially those in the public interest caused by environmental pollution,have received increasing attention.The environmental public interest litigation initiated by the procuratorial organ is also a vital part of it.This article focuses on the distribution of the burden of proof in environmental public interest litigation,which determines the party's responsibility for the adverse consequences of the trial.Therefore,it is necessary to study the distribution of burden of proof for environmental public interest litigation brought by procuratorial organs.The current domestic research on environmental public interest litigation mainly focuses on the investigation of the plaintiffs subject qualification.There is still little discussion about the distribution of the burden of proof,especially the distribution of the burden of proof by the procuratorial organs in bringing environmental public interest litigation.Although it is pointed out in Article 66 of the Tort Liability Law and Article 6 of the Supreme People's Court's Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Tort Liability Disputes(hereinafter referred to as the "Judicial Interpretation of Environmental Pollution Torts"),The correlation between pollution behavior and damage results bears the burden of proof,and the defendant bears the burden of proof that the causal relationship between the two does not exist,but there is no clear legal provision for the burden of proof for environmental public interest litigation.Some courts directly apply the inversion of the burden of proof in environmental tort litigation when arranging environmental public interest litigation cases,and assign the burden of proof to the environmental polluters,while the procuratorial organ only bears the burden of proof for pollution actions and damage results.This is the confusion of public interest litigation and private interest litigation.The procuratorial organs filed environmental public interest litigation with unclear burden of proof,and the procuratorial organ's burden of proof is not properly linked upside down with the defendant's burden of proof Coupled with the complexity of the environmental tort proof itself,these factors have led to confusion in the judicial practice of different courts' judgment standards on environmental public interest litigation cases and controversy over responsibility.In this regard,through the analysis of the judicial trial,the author focused the discussion focus on the distribution of the burden of proof of the procuratorial organ on the causality.Through detailed exploration of the causal relationship of burden of proof and its standard of proof,it provides a basis for the reasonable determination of the responsibility of environmental polluters.Therefore,it can effectively and effectively play the positive role of environmental public interest litigation.The first part is the theoretical basis for the distribution of burden of proof.This chapter mainly discusses the concept and source of the burden of proof and the inversion of the burden of proof,As well as China's current for the procuratorial organs to bring environmental civil public interest litigation the allocation of the burden of proof has not yet made specific legislative provisions.And the current problems of judicial practice.And that the allocation of burden of proof for environmental public interest litigation in China should follow the principles of environmental risk prevention,fairness and justice,the principle of balancing the status of parties and the principle of benefit.The second part discusses the problems in the distribution of burden of proof in the process of prosecuting environmental public interest litigation.The first is that the inversion of the burden of proof in judicial practice should not apply to China's environmental public interest litigation.The inversion of the burden of proof is overkill.Procuratorial organs have many advantages in proof,and the act of not bearing proof of causality does not meet the requirements of trial justice and trial efficiency.The application of the law confuses public interest litigation and private interest litigation,and the current legal provisions are scattered and ambiguous.At the same time,the use of evidence relies too much on the identification results.According to data in judicial practice,currently about 75%of judgments are made based on the results of the appraisal.The third part is to discuss the perfection of the system of prosecution bureau's burden of proof for environmental public interest litigation on the basis of the foregoing.The first is the necessity of bringing uniform legislation on the construction of environmental public interest litigation to procuratorial organs.The impact of Leo Rosenbeck's normative theory on China's burden of proof system.And clarify the classification of causality and the standard of proof of causality.The second is to strengthen the evidence collection ability.In addition to the traditional evidence collection methods,expert assistants,expert opinions,and people's court investigations are also introduced to collect evidence.And to explore how the prosecution team's capacity-building responds to the challenges brought about by the change in the distribution of burden of proof.First,in judicial practice,the ability to respond to court trials should be strengthened to enhance the ability to provide evidence.The second is to establish a sound environmental information disclosure system.The third is to give procuratorial organs greater power to investigate and gather evidence to meet the requirements of balancing the status of parties and the principle of benefit.