The Two Sessions • Voice of the Rule of Law
On March 1 last year, the Yangtze River Protection Law, the first special law for the mainland's river basin, came into effect. On the first anniversary of the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law, how can the court use the power of justice to protect the Yangtze River? In the protection of the Yangtze River, how to balance the relationship between ecological environmental protection and economic development? In this regard, during the national "two sessions," Nandu reporters interviewed Yang Linping, deputy to the National People's Congress and vice president of the Supreme People's Court.
Yang Linping introduced that in the past year, the court has adhered to the strictest system and the strictest rule of law, implemented the tone of "strictness" in the whole process and all aspects of the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law, and guarded the ecological environment of the Yangtze River Basin with judicial force.
Yang Linping, deputy to the National People's Congress and vice president of the Supreme People's Court.
Talk about the Yangtze River Protection Law
In handling cases, the protection and restoration of the ecological environment of the Yangtze River is placed in an overwhelming position
Nandu: The Yangtze River Protection Law is the first special law in the mainland's river basin, with special emphasis on the "strict" requirements for ecological environmental protection, how can the courts adhere to the "strictest system and the strictest rule of law" in judicial practice and implement the Yangtze River Protection Law?
Yang Linping: First, the system of tightly woven trial rules. In order to ensure the accurate application of the Yangtze River Protection Law, the SPC issued implementation opinions on the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law, and successively issued environmental judicial guidance opinions for the new era, minutes of the Yangtze River Protection Law Work Conference, ecological environment prohibition orders, punitive damages and other judicial interpretations, and improved the yangtze River protection trial rule system. The first batch of 7 Guiding Cases on Biodiversity Conservation and 10 Typical Cases involving the Judicial Protection of the Yangtze River were released, supplementing and enriching the rules for environmental judicial adjudication.
The second is to strictly apply the law in accordance with the law. Establish severe punishment and comprehensive responsibility in accordance with the law as one of the concepts of judicial protection of the Yangtze River environment, enrich preventive, restorative and punitive environmental judicial measures, and increase the trial of various cases that damage the ecological environment of the Yangtze River. Give full play to the functions of the environmental public interest litigation system, punish in accordance with law acts that harm the social public interest or may produce major risks of polluting the environment and damaging the ecology, and use more deterrent judicial means to protect the ecological environment of the Yangtze River.
The third is to adhere to the protection of river basin systems. Courts along the Yangtze River have set up 1203 special adjudication organizations such as environmental resources trial divisions, collegial panels, and people's courtrooms, and after the Nanjing Environmental Resources Court, the Kunming Environmental Resources Court has been established in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to explore new practices in judicial protection of the Yangtze River. Comprehensively implement the "three-in-one" centralized model of criminal, civil and administrative adjudication functions of environmental resources, coordinate the application of criminal sanctions, civil compensation and administrative punishment responsibilities, and enhance the coordination of judicial protection of the Yangtze River.
The fishery administration and law enforcement fleet sailed through the Wuhan section of the Yangtze River. The key waters of the Yangtze River Basin officially entered the "ten-year fishing ban period" from 0:00 on January 1, 2021. Xinhua News Agency
Nandu: The protection of the Yangtze River Basin involves 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and the infringement consequences of relevant ecological and environmental cases may affect many regions, so how can the SPC establish and improve the environmental judicial service guarantee mechanism in the river basin?
Yang Linping: The first is to improve the centralized jurisdiction mechanism for cases. Combined with the needs of ecological environmental protection in the Yangtze River Basin, explore a diversified cross-administrative division centralized jurisdiction model to achieve ecological environment system governance and integrated protection. At the same time, relying on rules such as cross-domain case filing and online litigation, we will promote synergy between centralized jurisdiction and litigation facilitation.
The second is to improve the environmental judicial cooperation mechanism. Guide a total of 12 courts in 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and Qinghai Province to sign cooperation framework agreements, establish a normalized coordination mechanism between courts in different places in the basin area, and form a joint force for judicial protection of the ecological environment in the whole basin and across regions.
The third is to improve the external coordination and linkage mechanism. Strengthen the docking of work with public security organs, procuratorial organs, Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commissions and other key river basin management agencies and administrative organs in areas such as information and data sharing, evidence collection and acceptance, and transfer of case leads, and promote the connection and cooperation between environmental criminal justice and environmental administrative law enforcement.
Nandu: In the process of protecting the Yangtze River, how do the people's courts balance the relationship between ecological environmental protection and economic development?
Yang Linping: The court has deeply implemented the concept that green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains, and pays attention to protection in development and development in protection. On the one hand, we insist on placing the protection and restoration of the ecological environment of the Yangtze River in an overwhelming position. For example, the "Green Peacock" case heard by the Yunnan court, as a preventive protection public interest litigation case, implements the principle of "protection first, prevention first", strives to eliminate the ecological and environmental damage at the source or control it within a reasonable range, and prevents major environmental risks.
On the other hand, attention is paid to balancing the public interests of the ecological environment and the interests of market players. Taking into account the actual difficulties of the enterprise, the Henan court allowed the defendant to use the technical transformation funds to offset part of the environmental governance and restoration costs during the execution, encouraged the enterprise to actively carry out technological transformation, improved the technical ability to prevent environmental pollution accidents, and not only restored the ecological environment to the greatest extent, but also actively assisted the green transformation of the enterprise.
Yuquan Mountain in the Xishan area of Taiyuan City was once seriously damaged due to digging and quarrying, and after years of afforestation and ecological restoration, the forest on the outskirts of the city is now lined with trees. Xinhua News Agency
Talk about punitive damages for the ecological environment
Strictly applicable in accordance with the law, solve the problem of low cost of environmental violations
Nandu: In recent years, there have been frequent violations of the ecological environment, how can the SPC increase the judicial protection of the environment?
Yang Linping: The Civil Code has newly added a punitive compensation system in the field of ecological environment. The SPC accurately understands and applies the relevant provisions of the Civil Code, increases the punishment for ecological and environmental infringements, and solves the prominent problem of low cost of environmental violations.
Last year, the SPC promulgated the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of Punitive Damages in the Trial of Cases involving Ecological and Environmental Infringement Disputes (hereinafter referred to as the Interpretation), which regulates the application of the punitive damages system for ecological and environmental infringement in trial practice. In the course of trying a case, the people's court shall comprehensively consider factors such as the degree of subjective malice and the severity of the infringement consequences for ecological and environmental infringers who have subjectively committed unlawful infringement and caused serious consequences, and order them to bear punitive damages that generally do not exceed twice the actual amount of losses, so that the malicious infringers can pay the due price and increase the cost of environmental violations.
Nandu: Why is the multiple set to "double"?
Yang Linping: Punitive compensation for the ecological environment is a special constituent element of causing serious consequences, and the base of compensation for ecological environmental damage is often large. Therefore, the SPC limits the multiple of punitive damages for the ecological environment to generally not more than twice the actual amount of losses, reflecting the concept of coordinating ecological environmental protection and economic and social development.
It should be noted that if there are special circumstances such as the infringer's subjective malice of violating the law to pollute the environment and damage the ecology is very obvious and cause particularly serious consequences, the court may impose "corresponding" higher multiple punitive damages on the infringer without twice the restriction when trying the case. In addition, multiples of less than two times are stipulated, and it is not required to be an integer multiple, but can also be determined as a decimal number.
Nandu: What is the current use of the punitive compensation system for ecological infringement?
Yang Linping: In ecological and environmental infringement dispute cases, the court strictly grasps the applicable conditions of the punitive damages system and applies it prudently in accordance with law.
The ecological and environmental punitive compensation system is a new provision of the Civil Code, and the amount of punitive damages is higher, and it has a punitive function that general environmental tort liability does not have. In addition, the production and operation activities of enterprises inevitably have negative environmental externalities, and while polluting the environment and destroying the ecology, they are also creating wealth and providing employment for society.
It is precisely for this reason that in judicial practice, the court should strictly grasp the applicable conditions, base technology, quantitative factors and multiples of punitive damages for the ecological environment, protect the ecological environment at the same time, and do a solid job in the "six stability" and "six guarantees" work to ensure the survival and development of enterprises. Where the same act of polluting the environment or damaging the ecology has been fined by an administrative organ or fined by a court, it may be comprehensively considered when determining the amount of the penalty. In order to facilitate the parties to claim their rights in a timely and comprehensive manner, litigation claims for punitive damages for ecological environment shall be raised by the parties together in the ecological and environmental infringement litigation and resolved by the court together, so as to provide fair, efficient and sufficient relief for the parties.
In addition, we will strengthen guidance through typical cases and promote the further improvement of the ecological and environmental punitive compensation system in the practice of environmental resources adjudication.
It is difficult to talk about the identification of environmental damage
Improve environmental judicial evidence rules
Nandu: How to ensure the professionalism of environmental resources adjudication and effectively protect the ecological environment?
Yang Linping: Ecological and environmental infringement dispute cases involve professional and technical issues in related fields such as environmental monitoring and ecological damage assessment, and put forward higher requirements for the clarification of facts, the acceptance of evidence, and the determination of causation in ecological environmental infringement dispute cases. To this end, under the impetus of the SPC and other units, in 2016, the Ministry of Justice included the forensic appraisal of environmental damage into the scope of unified registration and management, and gradually absorbed institutions engaged in environmental damage appraisal into the unified forensic appraisal database, effectively solving the problem of inconsistent and irregular environmental forensic appraisal.
However, from the perspective of practice, problems such as difficult appraisal, expensive assessment and long cycle in the field of ecological and environmental justice still exist, which to a certain extent affect the effectiveness of cracking down on environmental pollution and ecological damage violations.
Nandu: How to solve the problem of evidence determination involving professional and technical issues in the field of ecological environment in environmental justice?
Yang Linping: The first is to improve the relevant evidence determination rules. According to the current judicial interpretations, incident investigation reports, inspection reports, test reports, assessment reports, monitoring data, etc. formed by departments with responsibility for the supervision and management of environmental resources protection or institutions entrusted by them in the course of administrative law enforcement may be used as the basis for determining the facts of the case upon cross-examination by the parties and meeting the evidentiary standards.
The second is to improve the rules for the review and application of appraisal opinions. In addition to reviewing the formal requirements such as whether the appraisal body and appraiser have qualifications and whether the appraisal procedure is legal in accordance with the provisions of the Procedural Law, the court must also review the reliability of the scientific and technical principles or methods on which the appraisal opinion is based. In the next step, we will explore the establishment of an analytical framework and judgment standards for substantive review of appraisal opinions on the cost of ecological environment restoration as evidence materials.
The third is to give full play to the role of the people's assessors and trial expert pool. In cases where appraisal is not possible or the appraisal fee is too high, refer to expert opinions to enrich the methods of finding facts. At the same time, explore and improve systems for people with specialized knowledge to serve as people's assessors, expert assistants, and so forth, and formulate judicial interpretations such as rules for evidence in environmental resource cases and professional jurors in a timely manner, clarifying the corresponding rules.
The fourth is to increase the use of information technology. Advance the establishment of a judicial information platform for environmental resources, exploring mechanisms for sharing ecological environment monitoring data, administrative law enforcement information, and judicial case-handling information.
Talk about environmental justice intelligence
Plans to build a "one-net" national environmental resources trial
Nandu: In the digital age, how to improve the level of intelligence of judicial protection of the ecological environment and better protect the environment?
Yang Linping: The wisdom of judicial protection of the ecological environment is an important part of the construction of smart courts. At present, the main task is to take the construction of the people's court informatization version 4.0 as an opportunity to continue to promote the deep integration of modern science and technology with environmental justice, accelerate the construction of a national environmental resources trial information platform with the construction of judicial data and wisdom brain as the traction, build a "one network" of national environmental resources trials that is connected from top to bottom and horizontally, provide intelligent support for judges to handle cases, ensure the uniform application of laws in environmental protection cases, and provide comprehensive, timely and accurate big data analysis services for environmental judicial decision-making and judicial statistics.
Nandu: What is the "one net" of national environmental resources trials that are connected from top to bottom and horizontally, and what is its role?
Yang Linping: The connection between the upper and lower levels means that the information platform can obtain and statistically analyze the environmental resources trial information of the four levels of courts in real time, the SPC can timely grasp the handling of environmental resources cases in courts across the country, and the higher courts can supervise and track the major, difficult and complex cases handled by the lower courts through the platform. Horizontal connectivity includes horizontal connectivity within the court, that is, the realization of the whole process of informatization of environmental resource cases from case filing, trial to enforcement, and also includes external horizontal connectivity, that is, the interconnection and interconnection with administrative law enforcement organs such as the ecological environment and natural resources, public security organs, procuratorates, as well as public interest litigation organizations, mediation organizations, judicial appraisal institutions, etc., to provide an intelligent, standardized and integrated platform for multi-subject participation in ecological environment governance and the construction of a diversified solution system for environmental resource contradictions.
The ultimate purpose of building a "one network" of national environmental resources adjudication is to enhance the transparency, efficiency and convenience of environmental resource adjudication in the digital era, fully protect the people's right to participate, know and supervise environmental justice, and achieve environmental fairness and justice. At present, the construction of the platform is in close preparation, and strive to put the national courts online as soon as possible.
Written by: Nandu reporter Guo Ruomei and Liu Yan from Beijing