Research On Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation

With the continuous development of the market economy,China's environmental problems have become more serious.Once environmental damage occurs,it often has characteristics such as wide coverage,long duration,and inability to return to its original state.However,the existing Environmental Public Interest Litigation simply applies the post-reliance concept and relief method of the Tort Law,which has the hysteresis.Only through prevention sources,through Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation,to prevent environmental hazards from becoming environmental damage,and changing the concept and method of environmental relief,can fundamentally solve environmental problems.Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation refers to the prevention of ecological damage as the core goal,when the actions of any administrative agency or other public agency,legal person or other organization or individual may cause damage to the ecological environment,any lawsuit brought by any citizen,legal person,public organization or state organ to safeguard the public interest of environment.It is characterized by preventive,timely and complex.Once the ecological environment is damaged,it will be extremely difficult to recover and it will cost a lot of governance costs after damage.At present,China is in a Risk society,and the environmental situation is grim.In recent years,mass incidents of environmental protection have occurred frequently,but the existing Tort Law is based on post-relief,which leads to its insufficient prevention function,the emergence of Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation is a realistic necessity.However,there is still a voice of opposition in the theoretical and practical circles,some people think that the precautionary Environmental Public Interest Litigation should not exist,and some people think that the precautionary Environmental Public Interest Litigation should continue to apply the Tort Law.In the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Conduct of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigations,which came into force in January 2015,provisions on Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation have appeared.However,the provisions are vague and the relevant connotations are not specified,there are many shortcomings in the scope of the litigation subject,the connotation of prevention,and the burden of proof and standard of proof,these shortcomings are the important reasons for the slow progress of judicial practice in Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation.In addition,judges' judgments in judicial practice are susceptible to Tort Law,lack of independent refereeing spirit,and lack of understanding of the relationship between economic development and environmental protection,defects in the judicial process,such as inadequate litigation incentives,solidified trial ideas and methods,and lack of implementation experience,are also obstacles to the development of Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation.In the face of the existing difficulties,the author believes that relevant systems and experience outside China should be combined,from the principle of prevention and proportion,adhere to independent judicial judgment,give consideration to economic development and environmental protection to establish the correct concept of judgment.From expanding the scope of litigation subjects,clarifying the connotation of prevention,rationally distributing the burden of proof,and clarifying the standard of proof to improve the legal provisions for Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation.From the environmental administrative governance as a litigation pre-procedure,innovative litigation incentive mechanism,optimization of trial methods and ideas,and multi-angle cracking of case execution difficulties to improve the judicial procedures for Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation.It is hoped that through these efforts,the challenges facing the current Preventive Environmental Public Interest Litigation can be solved and the process of environmental protection in China will be promoted.