生态环境损害政府索赔制度的性质与定位

The Nature and Position of Government Claims for Eco-environmental Damage

我国正在推行的生态环境损害赔偿制度改革面临诸多争议:自然资源国家所有权作为请求权基础存在法理困境;政府同时享有行政执法权和民事索赔权导致逻辑悖论;政府索赔与公益诉讼制度关系不明引发适用分歧。尽管两大法系对于生态环境损害采取了公私有别的应对路径,但衡诸我国的现实情境,纯粹的私法责任或公法责任均难以实现事理与法理的平衡。因此,宜采取一种混合责任体制,目的是建立"公法性质、私法操作"的公益保护请求权,来源是国家的环境保护义务,适用对象应为责任人造成的所有生态环境损害,适用程序上应首先由生态环境主管部门采取"责令修复+代履行"机制进行公法救济,无法修复时则由自然资源主管部门进行金钱索赔,赔偿金用于替代修复。同时,为防止政府索赔出现恣意与专断现象,应通过环保督察、检察建议进行监督,并以社会组织和检察机关提起环境民事公益诉讼作为兜底。

China is undergoing a reform to allow local governments to make civil claims for ecoenvironmental damage. However,controversies have arisen during the reform process: jurisprudential arguments existing in taking the state ownership as the legal basis for claim,logical dilemmas between government’s role in administrative regulation and civil claim,as well as application disputes between government claims and public interest litigations. Although continental law countries mainly adopt pubic law mechanism to relieve eco-environmental damage while common law countries often adopt private law approach,a mixed liability regime may be more suitable for China. In this regime,the goal of government claims is to establish a public interest protection claim of "public-law-in-nature, private-law-inoperation". Its legal basis is the state’s environmental protection obligation,and shall be applied to all kinds of eco-environmental damages. Priority should be given to eco-environmental authorities to apply administrative enforcement mechanisms, government claims shall be applied by natural resources authorities only when the injured environment cannot be restored,and money should be only used for alternative restoration. In addition,tools such as environmental inspections and procuratorial proposals shall be used to avoid regulatory capture in this process,and environmental public interest litigation shall be taken as a supplemental mechanism.