环保法庭“无案可审”现象再审视

Re-examination of the Environmental Court's "No Case to Trial" Phenomenon

环保法庭在我国大规模设立却无案可审。其主要原因并非如学界所普遍认为的机制运行障碍,而更可能是因为环境司法需求薄弱且环保法庭的审判专业化优势十分可疑。由于案件受理数量过少,基于审判效率、专业性和司法统一性所进行的功能评估表明,环保法庭的设立多流于形式,制度效率不高。依据公共选择理论,法院内部治理、政治需求等自身利益诉求才是环保法庭制度化发展的实际推动力。更具社会福利意义的司法专门化改革应当以效率为目标,通过预算硬约束以及限制法院司法解释的范围等方式来约束其行为的自利倾向。

Environmental courts are set up on a large scale but have few cases to decide. The main reason for this is not that there is a general obstacle in the operation of the mechanism as the academic circles generally consider it, but more likely because of the weak social demand for environmental justice and the suspicious advantages of court trial specialization in Environmental Tribunals. Due to the low number of cases accepted, based on the functional evaluation of the trial in terms of efficiency, professional judgment and judicial unification, it shows that the establishment of environmental courts is formal and the efficiency of the system is not high. Based on the theory of public choice, the actual driving force for the institutional development of environmental courts is the self-interest demands of the internal governance and political demands of the courts. Judicial specialization reform with more social welfare goals should aim at restraining the self-serving tendency of its behavior by means of hard budget constraints and limits on the judicial interpretation of the courts.