Research On The Pre-Litigation Procedure Of Environmental Administrative Public Interest Litigation In China

As a judicial system with Chinese characteristics,procuratorial public interest litigation is an important institutional design to meet the needs of the people for a better life in the new era,and it is also an important institutional deployment to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity by using legal thinking and methods.In 2015,China began to carry out the pilot project of administrative public interest litigation initiated by procuratorial organs in key areas such as ecological environment and resource protection,and we formally established a pre-litigation system for administrative disputes in the public interest.On the basis of administrative procedures in the public interest,environmental policy issues will be identified in 2017 before litigation for environmental interests.Administrative procedures initiating lawsuits in the public interest of environmental management focus on administrative management issues in environmental matters.From the perspective of institutional functions,compared with litigation procedures,pre-litigation procedures have unique functions such as correcting administrative supervision failures and revitalizing procuratorial supervision.Compared with other public interest protection fields,Administrative procedures in the field of the environment in the public interest effectively limit irreversible damage to environmental pollution by concealing it and having sustainable characteristics.However,as an innovative system that draws on the experience of other countries and combines China’s national conditions in recent years,the pre-litigation procedure of environmental administrative public interest litigation still reflects many imperfections in its system development and practice.By sorting the existing norms of procuratorial litigation in the public interest,we have a comprehensive understanding and understanding of the current situation of administrative procedures for environmental administrative litigation in the public interest.From the perspective of procuratorial bodies and environmental administrative bodies as the two main subjects of power in the governance pattern of administrative procedures,85 typical administrative procedure cases for environmental administrative disputes of general interest released by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Supreme People’s Court from2018 to June 2022 were used as an analysis sample,and combining the characteristics of environmental public welfare damage,it can be found that there are three main problems in the exercise of procuratorial organs’ powers of investigation and evidence collection,irregular operation of environmental inspection recommendations,and unclear standards for determining the performance of duties by environmental administrative organs.Specifically,on the one hand,compared with other public welfare protection fields,environmental public welfare pollution has the characteristics of strong professionalism,cross-regional,and long-term restoration,and the corresponding procuratorial organs have problems in the process of formulating and issuing environmental inspection recommendations,such as the detailed content of environmental governance recommendations,the overlapping rights and responsibilities of the target of inspection recommendations,and the lack of feedback mechanisms for environmental rectification.In addition,due to the wide coverage of environmental elements,Environmental damage is diverse,interrelated,and complex,which makes the content of procuratorial organs more complex than other public welfare fields in terms of investigation and evidence collection,and the endogenous dilemma that environmental administrative organs perform their duties based on result standards,which is insufficient and incomplete.On the other hand,compared with litigation procedures,procuratorial organs also lack rigid coercive guarantees in exercising their right to investigate and collect evidence in environmental pre-litigation procedures.In response to the problems and crux of the pre litigation procedure in environmental administrative public interest litigation in practice,the development of future environmental pre litigation procedures needs to diversify from the perspective of procuratorial organs to ensure their investigation and evidence collection rights,and optimize the rules for the production and issuance of procuratorial suggestions;From the perspective of environmental administrative agencies,guided by the dual standards of behavior and results,scientifically determine performance standards,while flexibly setting performance deadlines.From the point of view of these two pre-litigation jurisdictions,the three phases of investigation and gathering of evidence,formulation and publication of environmental policy proposals and performance of the tasks of environmental management authorities in pre-litigation proceedings of disputes in the public interest of the environment are precisely and effectively linked.It also clarifies how pre-litigation procedures for administrative disputes in the environmental interest of the public interest can be improved.