环境侵权因果关系推定的实践困境与改进建议

Practical Dilemmas and Improvement Suggestions for Presumption of Causation in Environmental Torts

环境侵权中举证责任倒置的规定存在逻辑漏洞,原因在于对“推定”这一法律术语的理解存在误解。推定通常具有“假设”和“推理”两种含义,分别对应的逻辑结构具有本质差别,从而影响不同逻辑结构下的证明责任和证明标准,导致证明责任和证明标准在司法实践中的适用混乱。在环境侵权领域,要逐步放弃举证责任倒置的思路,转向真正意义上的因果关系推定,防止证明责任和证明标准的不稳定。与此同时,在部分案件中也可以采用比例因果关系的做法回避证明责任的适用。

The regulation of the reversal of the burden of proof in environmental torts contains logical flaws,due to a misunderstanding of the legal term“presumption”.Presumption typically has two meanings:“assumption”and“inference”,each corresponding to fundamentally different logical structures.These differences affect the burden of proof and the standard of proof,leading to confusion in their application in judicial practice.In the field of environmental torts,it is necessary to gradually abandon the reversal of the burden of proof and shift towards a true presumption of causation to prevent instability in the burden and standard of proof.Meanwhile,in some cases,the approach of proportional causation can be adopted to circumvent the application of the burden of proof.