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Eco-court, prosecutor and police fight jointly for environment justice
Source: Xinhua |
July 23, 2013, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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BY launching an eco-court, an eco-prosecutor's bureau and an eco-public security branch, Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou Province, is leading the way in China by building a justice system that promotes environmental progress.
Serious pollution led the city to set up an environmental issues court in Guiyang in late 2007, the first court of its kind in the country. Today, China has more than 130 environmental courts nationwide, since pollution is becoming an ever more dangerous and widespread issue affecting lives and health.
"Setting up specialized ecological courts could break the limitations of administrative areas and reduce interference from various parties," said Luo Guangqian, the environmental court's presiding judge.
In the past five years, the court had revolved 619 environmental cases involving water, land and air pollution, punishing 477 polluters. They include 13 major public interest environmental litigation cases.
"For a long time, China has mainly relied on administrative measures to manage and supervise environmental affairs and curb pollution," said national legislator Wang Qingxi, noting that judicial forces have been playing a relatively minor role in environmental protection.
The results proved unsatisfactory, as China has faced worsening pollution problems in its air, soil and water, and the public has become less tolerant of environmental hazards.
Apart from innovative local measures, judicial forces, responding to public calls to play a bigger role, are now gaining momentum in ecological protection at the national level.
Last month, the country's supreme court and national prosecutor's office jointly issued a new judicial explanation aimed at easing difficulties in investigating environmental pollution cases and convicting polluters. In addition, the draft amendment to the environmental protection law, tabled for a second reading last month at the country's top legislature, adopts harsher punishments for polluters.
The bill also introduces public interest litigation by authorizing the All-China Environment Federation and its provincial branches to initiate lawsuits against polluters on behalf of the public. Wang Jin, director of the Resource, Energy and Environmental Institute under Peking University, said, "Specifying an organization as a litigator may be defective, but the draft gives a direction for future development for other public interest groups."
Public interest litigation
Public interest litigation in environmental law is now well accepted in many developed and developing countries, said Ben Boer, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and a professor with the Research Institute of Environmental Law under Wuhan University.
"There must be a legal mechanism for the public to bring legal action in court in the interests of the public," because large numbers of people are affected by pollution and other environmental impacts and government agencies cannot always deal with all aspects of environmental degradation, he said.
As environmental courts in China are still young, they have their problems to work through, such as securing adequate resources, ensuring that their jurisdiction is broad enough and accessing appropriate expertise - issues an Australian judge described as "growing pains." Michael Rackemann, a judge with the Planning and Environment Court of Queensland, Australia, visited China's first environmental court in Guiyang last week.
"There's more to having an environmental court than just creating one," Rackemann said. The courts must be given sufficient jurisdiction, and it's very important for the to develop an understanding of the issues and become environmentally literate, which can be achieved through experience and judicial training, according to Rackemann.
Zhan Simin, vice president of the Guangzhou Maritime Court, said the high costs of obtaining evidence have reduced the number of environmental lawsuits. In one of the court's cases, it cost 250,000 yuan (US$40,743) to collect evidence, but the polluter, a local garment factory, was only ordered to pay 170,000 yuan in compensation, according to Zhan.
Sun Youhai, director of the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence of the Supreme People's Court of China, said that although there are many environmental disputes, only a few were taken to court because of the high threshold for filing lawsuits and difficulty in obtaining evidence.
Serious pollution led the city to set up an environmental issues court in Guiyang in late 2007, the first court of its kind in the country. Today, China has more than 130 environmental courts nationwide, since pollution is becoming an ever more dangerous and widespread issue affecting lives and health.
"Setting up specialized ecological courts could break the limitations of administrative areas and reduce interference from various parties," said Luo Guangqian, the environmental court's presiding judge.
In the past five years, the court had revolved 619 environmental cases involving water, land and air pollution, punishing 477 polluters. They include 13 major public interest environmental litigation cases.
"For a long time, China has mainly relied on administrative measures to manage and supervise environmental affairs and curb pollution," said national legislator Wang Qingxi, noting that judicial forces have been playing a relatively minor role in environmental protection.
The results proved unsatisfactory, as China has faced worsening pollution problems in its air, soil and water, and the public has become less tolerant of environmental hazards.
Apart from innovative local measures, judicial forces, responding to public calls to play a bigger role, are now gaining momentum in ecological protection at the national level.
Last month, the country's supreme court and national prosecutor's office jointly issued a new judicial explanation aimed at easing difficulties in investigating environmental pollution cases and convicting polluters. In addition, the draft amendment to the environmental protection law, tabled for a second reading last month at the country's top legislature, adopts harsher punishments for polluters.
The bill also introduces public interest litigation by authorizing the All-China Environment Federation and its provincial branches to initiate lawsuits against polluters on behalf of the public. Wang Jin, director of the Resource, Energy and Environmental Institute under Peking University, said, "Specifying an organization as a litigator may be defective, but the draft gives a direction for future development for other public interest groups."
Public interest litigation
Public interest litigation in environmental law is now well accepted in many developed and developing countries, said Ben Boer, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and a professor with the Research Institute of Environmental Law under Wuhan University.
"There must be a legal mechanism for the public to bring legal action in court in the interests of the public," because large numbers of people are affected by pollution and other environmental impacts and government agencies cannot always deal with all aspects of environmental degradation, he said.
As environmental courts in China are still young, they have their problems to work through, such as securing adequate resources, ensuring that their jurisdiction is broad enough and accessing appropriate expertise - issues an Australian judge described as "growing pains." Michael Rackemann, a judge with the Planning and Environment Court of Queensland, Australia, visited China's first environmental court in Guiyang last week.
"There's more to having an environmental court than just creating one," Rackemann said. The courts must be given sufficient jurisdiction, and it's very important for the to develop an understanding of the issues and become environmentally literate, which can be achieved through experience and judicial training, according to Rackemann.
Zhan Simin, vice president of the Guangzhou Maritime Court, said the high costs of obtaining evidence have reduced the number of environmental lawsuits. In one of the court's cases, it cost 250,000 yuan (US$40,743) to collect evidence, but the polluter, a local garment factory, was only ordered to pay 170,000 yuan in compensation, according to Zhan.
Sun Youhai, director of the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence of the Supreme People's Court of China, said that although there are many environmental disputes, only a few were taken to court because of the high threshold for filing lawsuits and difficulty in obtaining evidence.
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