Research On The Right Of Interpretation In Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

Environmental civil public interest litigation is a procedural system for conducting trials in accordance with legal procedures,which social organization,procuratorate or administrative agency qualified as a plaintiff to sue to the people's court is requested to investigate the legal liability of the environmental public welfare offender,for saving the environmental public welfare or prevent environmental public welfare infringement.The right of interpretation means that the judge adopts a metaphorical approach to the litigant to remind the party to make the meaning clear and sufficient and correct the unreasonable meaning where their meaning is not clear or inadequate in the case.The function of the right of interpretation is of great significance for perfecting the adversary system and for ensuring the legal status of the litigants.The right of interpretation plays an important role in the realization of the effect of litigation as an important system in civil litigation.There are many differences between environmental civil public interest litigation and ordinary civil litigation system,because the former has unique characteristics.The paper hopes the judge will exercise the interpretation right more appropriately and appropriately in the environmental civil public interest litigation though the comparison of two litigation system,and finally realize the purpose of protecting social public interests.As a special type of civil litigation,environmental civil public interest litigation has both the commonality of ordinary civil litigation and its own personality.This characteristic is also reflected in the right of interpretation,which is mainly manifested in two aspects: in the one hand,the public welfare of environmental civil public interest litigation has stricter requirements on the role of the right of interpretation in litigation.In another hand,the system of right of explanation has to be improved when the environmental civil public interest litigation involves special procedures.The traditional theory of interpretation right obviously cannot respond to many problems in environmental civil public interest litigation.There are three aspects which mainly concentrated through case analysis : first,the scope of interpretation of environmental civil public interest litigation is too narrow;secondly,the degree of interpretation in environmental civil public interest litigation in lack of special standards;thirdly,the single safeguard mechanism is not enough for the enforcement of the right of interpretation of environmental civil public welfare litigation.The reasonable resolution of the above three issues is the important parts of improving the exercise of interpretation in environmental civil public interest litigation.Firstly,the scope of interpretation of environmental civil public interest lawsuits should be expanded.The scope of the right of interpretation is the key of interpretation and environmental civil public interest lawsuits system.The scope is related to the realization of the purpose of litigation.Obviously,the scope of interpretation of the traditional civil public interest lawsuit is not enough to achieve the purpose of protecting social public interests.Through the summary and analysis of relevant practical cases,the author believes that the expansion of the scope of interpretation of environmental civil public welfare lawsuits should focus on two points.The first point is the interpretation of claims,and the expansion should start with condition appeal and reinstatement.The second is the interpretation of evidence and proof,starting with the guidance of proof under the rules of third-party acceptance and inversion of burden of proof.The expansion of the scope of interpretation in these two focuses plays a key role in achieving the purpose of protecting public interests in environmental civil public interest litigation.Secondly,the standard of the degree of interpretation in the traditional theory of interpretation right has failed to provide specific guidance for judges to reasonably grasp the degree of interpretation in environmental civil public interest litigation.Therefore,it is imperative to establish a new special standard based on the traditional theory of the right of interpretation and the characteristics of environmental civil public interest litigation.This standard can follow the logic of the traditional right of interpretation and adopts a combination of principle and specificity.In principle,the author believes that the judge should follow the principle of protecting the public interest when exercising the right of interpretation in environmental civil public interest litigation.In addition,the principle of neutrality of the judge should be amended accordingly with the participation of public power.In terms of specific standards,the particularity of plaintiff qualifications in environmental civil public interest litigation should be considered,and the differences in the timetable of different litigation subjects' participation in litigation should be studied from the perspective of litigation subjects.Finally,on the basis of expanding the scope of interpretation and establishing a new standard of interpretation degree,the exercise of the interpretation right by the judge will inevitably still cause problems such as how to explain under new circumstances and transcend the interpretation boundary.The traditional guarantee mechanism of the right of interpretation usually focuses on the relief mechanism of improper interpretation.However,due to the characteristics of social public interest in environmental civil public interest litigation,a diversified protection mechanism must be established to achieve the expected interpretation effect.Therefore,the author thinks that we can consider establishing a multi-level case guidance system to provide multi-level and comprehensive guidelines and references for judges to exercise their function of interpretation.In addition,it is necessary to establish a mechanism of interpretation responsibility considering the public interest.The establishment of the responsibility mechanism guarantees the enthusiasm of the judges to explain actively and reasonably when the public interest involved.In summary,it is necessary to improve the theory and system of interpretation in environmental civil public interest litigation,it plays an important role in alleviating the current contradiction between insufficient environmental legislation and prominent environmental problems in China.In the environmental judicial practice,there are also many problems in the exercise of the right of interpretation.Among them,the narrow scope of interpretation,the lack special standard,and the guarantee mechanism is not enough for interpretation are the main aspects that need to be adjusted urgently.Based on the basic theory and characteristics of the right to explain the environmental civil public interest litigation,this article attempts to find some reasonable and perfect solutions from these three major issues.