论我国环境民事公益诉讼中证明责任分配规则之完善

On the Perfection of the Distribution Rules of Burden of Proof in Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation in China

关于环境民事公益诉讼,我国并没有明确的、统一的裁判规则和证明责任规范,这就导致实践中对于环境民事公益诉讼的“证明责任倒置”情形存在诸多误解以及法律适用“不协调”的问题。如,在环境民事公益诉讼中适用私益诉讼的证明责任分配规则并不利于“双方平等对抗”诉讼构造的建立。另外,关于环境民事公益诉讼的法律还存在漏洞,缺少了对于主观要件证明责任该如何分配的规定。基于以上问题,建立统一的环境侵权诉讼的证明责任分配规则,厘清“证明责任倒置”情形的定义,构造环境民事公益诉讼中惩罚性赔偿的证明责任分配规则,是完善我国环境民事公益诉讼证明责任分配规则的重要途径。

With regard to environmental civil public interest litigation,there is no clear and unified judgment rule and standard of burden of proof in China,which in practice results in many misunderstandings about the“inversion of burden of proof”and the problems of incoordination in the application of law.For example,in environmental civil public interest litigation,the application of the distribution rule of the burden of proof in private interest litigation is not conducive to the establishment of a litigation structure of“equal confrontation between both parties”.In addition,there are loopholes in the law of environmental civil public interest litigation,which lacks the provisions on how to distribute the burden of proof for subjective elements.Based on the above problems,it is an important way to improve the distribution rules of burden of proof in environmental civil public interest litigation in China by establishing a unified distribution rule of burden of proof in environmental tort litigation,clarifying the definition of“inversion of burden of proof”and constructing the distribution rule of burden of proof for punitive damages in environmental civil public interest litigation.