China News Agency, Beijing, January 11 (Reporter Zhang Su) The Supreme People's Court of China released a special guiding case on environmental public interest litigation on the 11th. One of the cases is about judicial protection and a comprehensive ban on the entry of "foreign garbage".
The facts of the case show that criminals organized a batch of 138.66 tons of copper sludge in South Korea, and made false customs declaration documents under the name of copper ore sand.
After being seized by the customs, the solid waste was stranded in the port area and could not be returned, endangering the safety of China's ecological environment.
After evaluation, the copper sludge involved in the case contained a large amount of heavy metals, and the disposal cost was 1,053,700 yuan (RMB, the same below).
Since then, the Shanghai Third Intermediate People's Court has made criminal judgments against the companies and personnel involved.
In addition, according to the civil judgment made by the court, the defendants Mitai Company, Huang Deting, Xue Qiang, and Huayuan Company must "jointly compensate 1,053,700 yuan for the disposal of illegally imported solid waste (copper sludge)".
Huayuan Company refused to accept it and filed an appeal.
In December 2020, the Shanghai Higher People's Court rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Yang Linping, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, stated that the case clearly states that if the infringer smuggles solid waste and causes damage to the ecological environment or has a major risk of polluting the environment or destroying the ecology, he should bear the ecological and environmental tort liability in accordance with the law and compensate the administrative law enforcement agency for harmless disposal. The reasonable cost of expenditure can effectively solve the ecological protection dilemma of "enterprise pollution, mass victimization, and government footing the bill".
At the same time as the release of the case, Yang Linping also introduced the Chinese judicial practice of public welfare protection of the ecological environment at the press conference.
She said that since 2013, courts across the country have concluded more than 16,000 environmental public interest litigation cases, ecological and environmental damage compensation lawsuits, and judicial confirmation cases.
Yang Linping also said that courts across the country have set up a total of 2,426 specialized institutions or organizations for environmental and resource trials, and China has become the only country in the world that has established an environmental and resource trial system covering all levels of courts across the country.
The reporter learned from the meeting that the courts in the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin have set up special trial institutions and trial organizations for environmental resources to achieve full coverage of key areas in the river basin.
Liu Zhumei, chief judge of the Environmental Resources Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, said that the Yellow River Protection Law will come into effect on April 1 this year, and the Supreme Court will hold a special meeting to make arrangements for the implementation of this law.
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