"Green procuratorate" highlights the power of public interest litigation

In winter, the Lancang River Nuozhadu Reservoir Area is turquoise and quiet, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds. The green mountains on both sides of the strait are green, and taking a boat is like swimming in the middle of a painting...

Then to Naozadu, Li Tie, a full-time member of the procuratorial committee of the People's Procuratorate of Pu'er City, Yunnan Province, and the leader of public interest litigation, was relieved and emotional, and she remembered the days and nights in the operation to clean up cage fish farming. The operation lasted more than three years, dismantling 13,000 acres of illegal cages. Until August last year, the water in the former breeding area was no longer dirty and no longer smelly.

Pu'er City is located in the heart of Yunnan's "Animal and Plant Kingdom" and has two national nature reserves. In September 2015, the Pu'er Municipal Procuratorate was identified as one of the first batch of public interest litigation pilots in China. Li Shiqing, chief procurator of the Pu'er Municipal People's Procuratorate, said that public interest litigation, especially "green procuratorate" (environmental protection public interest litigation), is the outstanding work of the procuratorate.

Li Tie recalled that at the beginning of the pilot in 2015, the Pu'er procuratorate was still "at a loss" for public interest litigation, and the civil administrative procuratorate responsible for the pilot work had only 3 female cadres and policemen, and there were only two county and district procuratorates in the city with case-handling forces. In order to do a good job in this important work, the Municipal Procuratorate regards public interest litigation as a "first-hand project", divides 10 county and district courts into 3 areas, guided by business backbones, and forms an integrated case-handling mechanism from top to bottom; at the same time, the backbone of the city's business is drawn to form a circuit case-handling team, sinking the first-line key breakthroughs, and activating the overall situation with small special activities. Lancang Lahu Autonomous County relied on the circuit procuratorate office to carry out a special action on the comprehensive improvement of Jingmai Mountain and the public interest litigation on the protection of historical and cultural heritage, escorting Jingmai Mountain's application for world cultural heritage.

In March 2015, the pipeline of the dressing plant of Jinggu Mining and Metallurgical Co., Ltd. was broken, resulting in the leakage of copper sulfate liquid through the drainage channel, resulting in the pollution of some farmland and vegetable fields and the pollution of the river. In the course of public interest litigation, the Pu'er Municipal People's Procuratorate reached a mediation agreement with Jinggu Company, in which the company compensated more than 800,000 yuan for the cost of ecological and environmental damage restoration to the government public account; the company paid 400,000 yuan in judicial appraisal fees.

"The practice of including appraisal fees in litigation claims in this case can realize the unification of the cost of judicial remedies and the benefits of relief, and at the same time form a punishment for the infringers, which is conducive to the realization of the purpose of civil public interest litigation." Li Tie said.

Since the pilot, the procuratorial organs in Pu'er City have filed more than 4,100 public interest litigation cases, of which the administrative organs have accepted procuratorial suggestions and rectified more than 94% of them, and 222 public interest litigation cases have been filed, and none of them have lost.

"Green procuratorate" is not a "one-man show", Pu'er Municipal Procuratorate and the court, natural resources, water affairs, ecological environment, forestry and grassland, market supervision and other departments to establish a work coordination mechanism, set up 10 nature reserve circuit procuratorial offices in the city, promote the functional departments to issue the "Pu'er City River Sand Mining Management Regulations", the establishment of "river (lake) chief + chief procurator", "forest chief + chief procurator" and and the municipal fire brigade of the inspection and elimination coordination mechanism. The Pu'er Municipal Party Committee, the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, and the Municipal Government have respectively issued documents and measures to support the procuratorial organs' public interest litigation. Cooperate with the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Supervision Commission, and invite them to send "observers" to supervise the handling and implementation of procuratorial suggestions, so that procuratorial suggestions can "grow teeth".

"In the past, some administrative organs were more resistant to procuratorial suggestions, but over the past few years, they have become more and more accepted and even welcomed," Li Tie said. Li Shiqing said that in the next step, procuratorial organs should also participate in the comprehensive management of the ecological environment, explore biodiversity conservation, and use "green procuratorate" to open up the modernization path of rule of law and ecological governance in the frontier.

Author: Xu Yuanfeng, a reporter of this newspaper

Source: People's Daily