环境民事公益诉讼阶段性、多元化证明标准建构研究——基于私益诉讼与公益诉讼比较的视角

Regarding the Construction of Staged and Diversified Proof Standards for Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation——On the Perspective of Comparative Analysis of Private and Public Interest Litigation

当下中国立法或司法解释并未明确环境民事公益诉讼证明标准为何,这一定程度上导致司法实践中法院对环境民事公益诉讼案件证明标准认识和认定上的混乱。现有举证责任倒置机制并未实质性解决公益诉讼提起者举证的困难性,让公益诉讼提起者承担对“关联性”证明又加重了其证明责任。私益诉讼原告与公益诉讼提起者以及公益诉讼提起者之间在证据收集能力上存在明显差异。未来应直接取消环境侵权纠纷举证责任倒置这一技术装置,利用降低证明标准这一机制解决环境侵权纠纷提起者举证的困难性。从私益诉讼与公益诉讼存在差异性角度出发,在兼顾案件性质、案件类型以及不同法律要件举证困难度等基础上建构阶段性、多元化的环境民事公益诉讼证明标准体系。

Current Chinese law and court interpretations do not establish the standard of evidence for environmental civil public interest litigation,which has led to considerable misunderstanding in judicial practice about this requirement.The existing mechanism of reversing the burden of proof does not adequately address the problem of proving public interest litigation and putting the responsibility of establishing“relevance”on public interest plaintiffs would raise their burden of proof.Between private plaintiffs and public interest litigants,as well as between public interest litigants and public interest litigants,there is a significant distinction in the capacity to gather evidence.In the future,the technological method of inverting the burden of proof in environmental tort disputes should be eliminated,and the difficulty of proof for environmental tort plaintiffs should be addressed by reducing the standard of proof.In the light of the differences between private and public interest litigation,a phased and differentiated system of proof standards should be developed for environmental civil public interest litigation,taking into consideration the nature of the case,the type of case and the difficulty of proving different legal elements.