The 6-year public interest litigation of the new environmental protection law has entered a period of vigorous development


Environmental public interest litigation basically achieved full coverage of key areas

　　Core reading

　　In the past six years, the main body of environmental public interest litigation has expanded, the types of cases have become diversified, and the laws and regulations have gradually improved. my country's environmental public interest litigation has made great progress.

However, while the old problems that have plagued environmental public interest litigation for many years, such as the management and use of compensation funds, have not been completely resolved, some new problems have emerged, which require urgent attention and measures to be taken to resolve them.

　　□ Our reporter Yan Jianrong

　　On January 1, 2015, the newly revised Environmental Protection Law was implemented.

The new environmental protection law clearly states that social organizations can file environmental lawsuits.

In the same year, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress authorized the Supreme People's Procuratorate to conduct trials of public interest litigation in 13 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) procuratorial organs.

Over the past six years, environmental public interest lawsuits initiated by procuratorial organs and social organizations, especially those initiated by procuratorial organs, have increased year by year, basically realizing full coverage of environmental public interest lawsuits in key areas of ecological protection.

　　At the “Environmental Public Interest Litigation Theory and Practice” seminar jointly held by the All-China Environmental Protection Federation and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics recently, Lv Hongtao, deputy director of the Eighth Department of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, revealed that since 2015, the environmental public interest Litigation cases account for about 60% of all public interest litigation cases.

As the largest environmental protection organization in China, the All-China Environmental Protection Federation not only was the first to get involved in environmental public interest litigation, but also brought as many as 50 lawsuits after the implementation of the new environmental protection law, and many cases were selected as typical cases of the "two highs".

　　Over the past six years, the main body of environmental public interest litigation has been expanding, the types of cases have become diversified, and the regulations and systems have gradually improved... Li Mingyi, the party affairs commissioner and second-level inspector of the Environmental Resources Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, said at the meeting that my country's environmental public interest litigation has made great progress development of.

　　Although environmental public interest litigation has achieved remarkable results, some new problems have emerged while the old problems that have plagued environmental public interest litigation for many years have not been completely resolved.

Relevant experts believe that these problems require urgent attention and take practical measures to resolve them.

　　Diversified types of environmental public interest litigation cases

　　"Since 2009, the All-China Environmental Protection Federation has been engaged in the exploration of environmental public interest litigation. From 2009 to 2015, the new environmental protection law has not yet been implemented. Some local courts believed that we did not have the qualifications of the plaintiff, and 9 of the 23 cases were filed during the period. No case has been filed." Wei Zhe, deputy director of the Environmental Legal Service Center of the All-China Environmental Protection Federation, told the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily that after the implementation of the new environmental protection law, as of the end of last year, only one of the 50 cases filed by the All-China Environmental Protection Federation was not filed, and the case closure rate exceeded 70%, 5 times have been selected as various typical cases announced by the Supreme People's Court.

　　"Since the implementation of the new environmental protection law in 2015, environmental public interest litigation has entered a period of vigorous development, and environmental public interest litigation has made great progress. This is first reflected in the increasing expansion of litigation subjects." Li Mingyi said, including the China Environmental Protection Federation, including the public interest The number of litigation social organizations has gradually increased.

He said that in July 2015, the procuratorial organs have become an important force in environmental public interest litigation since they initiated the pilot public interest litigation.

Currently, environmental public interest litigation has basically achieved full coverage of key areas for ecological protection.

　　At the same time, the types of cases tend to be diversified. “From the perspective of court cases, environmental public interest litigation cases involving air, water, and soil pollution account for the vast majority of environmental public interest litigation cases, involving forest, grassland, beach, wetland ecological protection and endangered activities. Public interest litigation cases involving the protection of natural resources such as plants, minerals, and forests are also increasing year by year.” Li Mingyi said that in recent years, the legal system for public interest litigation has gradually improved and the environmental public interest litigation rules have been gradually refined.

Among them, the Supreme People’s Court has issued judicial interpretations on the trial of environmental civil public interest litigation; the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued judicial interpretations on public interest litigation for prosecutions, and the two Supreme People’s Courts also jointly approved the pre-litigation announcement procedures for criminal incidental civil public interest litigation. .

　　Li Mingyi pointed out that the adjudication and enforcement methods of environmental public interest litigation are also constantly innovating. Many courts have explored the application of prohibitions in public interest litigation to effectively prevent the occurrence and expansion of ecological environmental damage.

At the same time, the technical experts will play an auxiliary role in the identification of damage facts and the determination of causality to enhance the effectiveness of the investigation.

Use alternative restoration methods to flexibly apply alternative restoration responsibilities such as replanting and re-greening, proliferation and release, forest protection and bird protection, and labor compensation to promote the restoration of the ecological environment and enhance the carrying capacity of environmental resources.

　　Establish the status of the main force of procuratorial organs

　　In July 2015, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress authorized the Supreme People's Procuratorate to carry out pilot work of public interest litigation in 13 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities.

According to Lu Hongtao, on the basis of the remarkable results achieved in the two-year trial, in June 2017, the 28th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress made a decision to amend the Civil Procedure Law and the Administrative Procedure Law. The Civil Procedure Law and the Administrative Procedure Law have specially added procuratorial public interest litigation clauses.

In September of the same year, the Central Deep Reform Commission decided to establish a public interest litigation procuratorate in the Supreme People's Procuratorate; in October 2018, public interest litigation prosecution was written into the People's Procuratorate Organization Law; in April 2019, the Public Prosecutors Law clarified the responsibilities of public interest litigation.

　　Lu Hongtao said that in practice, from 2017 to October 2020, procuratorial organs at all levels across the country filed more than 200,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, and issued more than 170,000 pre-litigation announcements and procuratorial recommendations. , Filed more than 10,000 lawsuits.

　　“From January 2019 to October 2020, through public interest litigation, we urged the restoration of more than 5,000 mu of damaged wetlands, the treatment of more than 200,000 mu of contaminated water sources, and the cleaning of 2.82 million mu of contaminated waters. There were more than 1.54 million mu of contaminated soil, and 3.7 million tons of production solid waste were urged to recycle and clean up.” According to Lu Hongtao, in 2018, prosecutors opened 110,000 public interest litigation cases; 135,000 cases were filed in the first 11 months of 2020.

From January to October 2020, a total of 67,937 environmental resource cases were filed by the procuratorial organ, accounting for 55.5% of all cases, and 4214 cases were filed in the people’s courts.

　　He said that in 2017, since the formal establishment of the public interest litigation system of the procuratorial organs, the public interest litigation cases filed by the procuratorial organs have increased year by year.

Lv Hongtao specifically mentioned that from 2017 to 2020, in the field of ecological environment and resources, the people's courts filed civil lawsuits or criminal incidental civil lawsuits and were supported by the judgments of the people's courts, and the ecological environment compensation that was implemented in place exceeded 3.3 billion yuan.

　　“In handling a wild animal trafficking case transferred by the public security organs, the procuratorate in Xuzhou, Jiangsu found that several companies in Hainan had sold more than 400 tropical sea turtles to many places.” Lv Hongtao said that under the coordination of the Supreme Procuratorate, the prosecutors’ agency has been in contact with agriculture. In consultation with the fishery administration department of the Ministry of Rural Affairs, with the support of the wildlife protection department, the procuratorial organ and the local Hainan government have made a series of arrangements for the release of sea turtles while punishing criminal suspects in accordance with the law. In the end, more than 200 sea turtles were released. Only, and installed GPS tracking system for more than 60 sea turtles.

　　Environmental public interest litigation still has problems to be solved

　　Although my country's environmental public interest litigation has made great progress, there are still many shortcomings in environmental public interest litigation. For example, the special adjudication rules are not perfect, and the research on special adjudication rules applicable to environmental public interest litigation needs in-depth research; criminal incidental civil public interest litigation, procuratorial public interest litigation, etc. There are still many disputes in the field that need to be resolved urgently; public interest litigation repairs are not uniform in fund management, etc.

Li Mingyi said that these problems in public interest litigation need to be solved by the joint research of judicial practice and theory.

　　Old problems also include the management and use of compensation.

Wei Zhe said that at present, a lot of compensation has been put into the local government's special financial account.

Since there is a clear approval process and special funds must be used for special purposes, the flexibility of use is low, which makes it easy for compensation to become "zombie" funds.

　　In addition to these old problems, new problems have recently emerged.

These include environmental public interest lawsuits filed by environmental organizations and the issue of "car crashes" in compensation for damages to the government's ecological environment.

According to Liu Guichen, a volunteer lawyer of the China Environmental Protection Federation, two environmental public interest lawsuits filed by the China Environmental Protection Federation in Shandong have been heard in the courts. Later, because the government filed an ecological environmental damage compensation lawsuit, their cases were ruled to be suspended.

"This is a waste of precious judicial trial resources and the insufficient funds of environmental protection organizations." Liu Guichen said.

　　Regarding the issue of "car crash", Wei Zhe believes that compensation for damage to the ecological environment should refer to environmental public interest litigation to establish an announcement system to solve the problem of subject connection and avoid repeated litigation and waste of judicial resources.

　　In addition, environmental protection organizations suggest that it is a pity that some "zombie" funds can be used to support litigation fees and expert fees in other public interest litigation cases, and solve the problem of funding difficulties in environmental public interest litigation by environmental protection organizations.