In the past year, cases of public interest litigation filed by procuratorial organs around the country have gradually become the norm. From July 2017, the prosecutorial public interest litigation system was formally written into the law, to January this year, the national procuratorial organs *** filed 10,565 cases of public interest litigation, of which 6,335 cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, supervised the restoration of the polluted, damaged arable land, forest land, etc. 152,000 acres, supervised the management of the restoration of the contaminated water area of more than 284 square kilometers, and supervised the rectification of 1451 illegal enterprises, creating a solid foundation for the "beautiful China", which will be the first time in the future. The company has also urged 1451 illegal enterprises to carry out rectification, building a solid judicial protection barrier for "Beautiful China".
Multiple ways to solve the ecological environment public interest litigation case processing problems
Ecological environment pollution has the complexity, latent and widespread characteristics, generally need to be accumulated over a long period of time, but also the lack of obvious specific victims. The handling of such cases, whether it is clue discovery, investigation and evidence collection, or damage appraisal, the requirements are very professional.
Shaw Wei, spokesman for the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, said that the establishment of the procuratorial authorities to bring public interest litigation system is to optimize the allocation of judicial powers and improve the civil and administrative litigation system, and to promote the further development of public interest litigation system is an important initiative. Compared with other litigation subjects, the procuratorial organs have the legal right to investigate, can well solve the problem of investigation and evidence collection and proof of difficulties; with professional legal supervision team, can efficiently and accurately start and carry out litigation, but also can greatly reduce the cost of justice.
In the past year, the procuratorial authorities have handled a number of cases in the field of ecological environment that are long, complex and involve many interests, allowing many long-term damaged national and social public **** interests to be protected.
April 14, 2017, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Baizhang Creek a muddy yellow, water pollution stretches 3 kilometers. Public security police and environmental protection law enforcement officers jointly investigated and found that not far from the creek there is a hidden illegal disposal of hazardous waste processing site.
The suspect, Hong Mou, was soon arrested by prosecutors in Yuhang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Procuratorial authorities also found that Hong is only the last link of the whole case of pollution of the environment, pollution of the environment also includes the production, transportation, acquisition, storage, disposal of hazardous wastes and other aspects of the case involves a number of suspects and a number of enterprises to provide Hong with hazardous wastes.
Thus, a cross-zhejiang, jiangsu, anhui three places, tort liability subject up to 20, ecological damage repair costs over a million dollars of pollution of the environment case surfaced. Hangzhou Yuhang District Prosecutor's Office set up a special case team, from strict and fast arrest of those involved in the pollution of the environment, and take the initiative to guide the investigative organs of a number of suspects to carry out investigation and evidence collection, a comprehensive review of the supplemental improvement of public interest litigation case chain of evidence. In April of this year, this pollution of the environment criminal incidental civil public interest litigation case successfully prosecuted by the procuratorial organs.
"In practice, the procuratorial authorities have explored a variety of ways to solve the problems of handling ecological environment public interest litigation cases." Hu Wei Lie, director of the Civil and Administrative Prosecution Department of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, said that the procuratorial authorities have continuously improved and upgraded the "administrative law enforcement and criminal justice" articulation platform, and established a law enforcement information ****sharing mechanism, law enforcement clues two-way transfer mechanism, joint meeting mechanism, etc., to build an all-round collaborative cooperation mechanism in the clues transfer, investigation and evidence collection. At the same time, the big data information platform, drone forensics and other advanced technologies applied to the practice of handling cases, and constantly improve the clues found and the ability to investigate and collect evidence, and make full use of the professional power, to explore the university researchers, professional and technical personnel, administrative departments in the staff of the selected experts to set up public interest litigation expert bank, the investigation and collection of evidence, damage identification to provide professional support.
Exploring the judicial concept of ecological restoration and establishing an ecological restoration mechanism
In the ecological environment field public interest litigation cases handled by the procuratorial organs, in addition to the pollution of the environment cases, there is also a large portion of ecological environment destruction cases, such as illegal mining, deforestation, illegal fishing, and so on. Tongan District, Xiamen City, Fujian People's Procuratorate had found in the course of duty, a company in a group of abandoned quarry pits for ecological environment restoration treatment, perfunctory, did not meet the requirements of the treatment, the depth of more than 100 meters of mining pits there is a huge safety hazard.
The procuratorate issued a procuratorial recommendation to the district land bureau, suggesting that it order the company to fulfill the obligations of mining geo-environmental restoration within a certain period of time, and to check whether there is similar negligence in supervising the restoration of geo-environmental restoration of other mines that have been closed down. Fujian Xiamen Tong'an District Land Bureau received the prosecutor's recommendation, immediately took measures to urge the company to backfill the quarry pit as a construction waste disposal site, and completely restore the ecological environment of the quarry pit.
In the case practice, "breeding and release, replanting and re-greening" is becoming more and more a recurrent requirement for public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment, the defendant in addition to criminal liability, but also be required to bear the corresponding civil liability, fast and effective repair of the damaged ecological environment, to ensure that the interests of the public **** to be protected.
Inner Mongolia, a public interest litigation case defendants were sentenced to replant 16,966 trees; Jiangsu Province, a public interest litigation defendants were required to replant 2,000 black pine seedlings more than 3 years old at the designated location, and is responsible for the maintenance of 1 year, the acceptance of the survival rate of the need to reach more than 95% ...... Hu Weilei said that the essence of ecological restoration is to "Restoration", the key is "implementation", first of all, we must do a good job of restoring the assessment and selection of the way, consult the views of professional departments to determine the reasonable replanting of species, quantity, geographical and other elements, do fine restoration program to ensure that the ecological environment of the restoration to the practical.
Source: People's Daily