Work together to protect the ecological environment with the strictest system and the strictest rule of law

Work together to unite the surging power

-- The Supreme People's Procuratorate, in conjunction with relevant departments, protects the ecological environment with the strictest system and the strictest rule of law

Nature has its own mysteries, from rivers, lakes and seas to forests and grasses, from the stars of the universe to towns and villages, the ecological environment infinitely accommodates all things, feeds human beings, and forms an organic system. In the complex field of ecological environment system protection, in the process of fighting against crimes that damage the ecological environment and resources, any individual individual will appear weak and lonely, and only by working together can it burst out vigorous power.

In recent years, from jointly carrying out special actions in the field of ecology and environment, releasing typical cases, to jointly issuing judicial interpretations and establishing coordination and cooperation mechanisms, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has always acted with the Supreme People's Court, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Coast Guard, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and other relevant departments, and worked together to unswervingly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's requirements." Protect the ecological environment with the strictest system and the strictest rule of law."

Demonstration: Judicial protection of the ecological environment to the world

In July 2020, the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment received a report from the public that there had been a long-term pungent odor around an idle courtyard in Wuqing District, affecting production and life, which involved an inter-provincial environmental pollution case involving the disposal of waste lead storage batteries in six dens in Tianjin, Inner Mongolia and Hebei.

In the process of handling cases, the public security organs are mainly "people" and are responsible for arresting and interrogating; The ecological environment department is mainly "things", responsible for the advance storage and sampling of waste lead batteries and contaminated soil, and issues environmental appraisal reports as soon as possible; Procuratorial organs promptly dispatch personnel to participate in upstream and downstream criminal evidence collection work, and promptly put forward opinions and suggestions on whether they are crimes or general violations of the law for different persons involved in the case.

As early as 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly organized a special operation to severely crack down on environmental violations and crimes of hazardous waste, focusing on punishing environmental violations and crimes such as illegal collection, utilization and disposal of waste mineral oil and illegal discharge, dumping and disposal of hazardous waste across administrative regions; In 2021, the three departments included the falsification of automatic pollutant emission monitoring data of key pollutant dischargers into the scope of crackdown; In 2022, third-party environmental service providers will be included in the special action to commit fraud; This year, the three departments jointly released 11 typical cases in this field, and the above case is one of them.

It can be said that the procuratorial organs and the relevant administrative and judicial departments have joined hands to form a seamless connection between executions and jointly punish environmental pollution crimes in accordance with the law, which has become a law enforcement and judicial norm in the Jinxiu mountains and rivers.

In order to concentrate on rectifying the outstanding problems of the "four chaos" in the Yellow River Basin, such as indiscriminate occupation, indiscriminate mining, indiscriminate piling and indiscriminate construction, since December 2018, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources have launched a special operation of "joining hands to clean up the four chaos and protect the Mother River", and in April this year, 11 typical cases of coordinated procuratorial supervision and water administrative law enforcement to protect the water safety of the Yellow River have been successfully explored and practiced.

In order to ensure the smooth development of the "ten-year fishing ban" in the Yangtze River, since June 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the State Administration for Market Regulation and other departments, has jointly deployed a three-year "special rectification action to combat illegal fishing in the Yangtze River Basin", and the trend of illegal fishing in the Yangtze River Basin has been significantly curbed.

At the same time, China's story of environmental resource protection and rule of law has also begun to go abroad and to the world. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has deepened exchanges and cooperation with relevant international organizations, and actively participated in international conferences such as the World Conservation Congress, the Convention on Wetlands and the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, demonstrating its great power spirit and responsibility in the field of environmental protection.

Solution: The "stuck neck" problem of ecological environmental protection

A company in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region illegally landfilled more than 10,000 tons of waste residue after disposal after the disposal of overhaul slag without taking any anti-seepage measures; A golf course project in Hainan Province is illegally operating in a nature reserve; The wastewater produced by a rare earth project in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has a high ammonia nitrogen value, and the continuous spillover pollutes the surrounding environment; The coke oven flue gas desulfurization facility of a coal gasification company in Shanxi Province has not operated normally for a long time, resulting in dust pollution, air pollution and surrounding environmental pollution... Read through 10 typical cases of procuratorial public interest litigation released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on June 6 this year to coordinate the rectification of central ecological environmental protection inspectors, involving pollution remediation of hazardous waste, industrial wastewater, atmosphere, heavy metals and other pollution, ecological restoration of agricultural land and nature reserves, illegal mining control, and standardized disposal of urban household waste.

The Central Ecological Environmental Protection Inspectorate is a major institutional innovation and reform measure for the construction of ecological civilization personally planned, deployed and promoted by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The Measures for the Rectification of Central Ecological Environmental Protection Supervision clarifies the duties of procuratorial organs to lawfully carry out public interest litigation on the issue of ecological and environmental damage transferred by inspectors. Since then, the transfer of case materials from the Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Supervision Office to the Supreme People's Procuratorate has gradually become a regular working mechanism, and has also become an important source of clues for procuratorial organs to handle ecological environment and resource protection cases. Procuratorial organs at all levels insist on grasping such cases as "number one" projects, and as of December 2022, a total of 2,982 relevant public interest litigation cases have been filed and handled.

For a long time, a series of problems such as difficulty in discovering case clues, difficulty in handling evidence collection, and difficulty in identifying environmental damage have long plagued the handling of ecological and environmental cases, becoming "hard bones" and "old difficulties", and "stuck" in the "neck" of judicial protection of ecological environment. To this end, the Supreme People's Procuratorate actively cooperates with relevant departments to act together——

In response to the difficulty of compensation for ecological and environmental damages, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, in coordination with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other 13 departments, formulated the Regulations on the Administration of Compensation for Ecological and Environmental Damages, and 14 provinces and autonomous regions established mechanisms for linking procuratorial public interest litigation with compensation for ecological and environmental damages.

In response to the problem of difficult and expensive appraisal of environmental damage, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Justice, promoted 58 environmental damage appraisal institutions to implement the implementation of procuratorial public interest litigation first appraisal and then fees;

In response to the problem of highly specialized cases in the field of ecology and the environment and the difficulty of handling cases, procuratorial organs have deepened the system of administrative organ professionals concurrently serving as assistant procurators, established a database of technical experts in environmental public interest litigation, and used wisdom to improve the level of performance of duties.

Establishment: Gather the strongest forces with the greatest consensus

The tall trees are shady, and the trees are not alone. In the struggle for ecological environmental protection, how can procuratorial organs, judicial organs, public security organs and administrative organs join hands to achieve the effect of "1+1>2"?

Take the administrative public interest litigation case jointly issued by the "two supremes" in Yijiang District of Wuhu City, Anhui Province v. Wuhu Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. In this case, a poultry company illegally slaughtered nearly 30,000 animals per day without an animal epidemic prevention condition certificate and without harmless disposal facilities, and discharged more than 2,000 tons of wastewater directly into the river every day, causing black and odorous water bodies in the surrounding water bodies and polluting the ecological environment of the Qingyi River and the Yangtze River Basin. Procuratorial organs urge administrative organs to fully perform their duties in accordance with law through methods such as formulating and issuing procuratorial recommendations and initiating administrative public interest lawsuits. In the process of enforcing judgments, procuratorial organs, judicial organs and administrative organs form a joint force for public interest protection, take the ban on illegal slaughtering and processing points as the entry point, promote the centralized rectification and standardized production and operation of the poultry slaughtering industry, and solve the problem from the source.

In order to make this kind of "hand in hand" a daily routine, the procuratorial organs, together with relevant departments, have gathered the greatest force for ecological environmental protection with the greatest consensus through the establishment of rules and regulations, and promoted the normal, standardized and scientific operation of ecological environmental protection on the track of rule of law.

In fact, as early as the establishment of the public interest litigation system, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and other departments, issued the "Opinions on Strengthening Cooperation and Cooperation in Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation to Fight the Battle against Pollution Prevention and Control in accordance with the Law" in January 2019. Clear norms are made in eight aspects, including personnel exchanges.

Whether it is criminal means to combat crime, or public interest litigation to promote litigation source governance, there are many similar coordination mechanisms and joint issuance of relevant opinions.

Taking this year as an example, in June, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the China Coast Guard jointly issued the Minutes of the Symposium on Lawfully Cracking Down on Illegal Crimes Related to Sea Sand, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the China Coast Guard jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Improving the Investigation Supervision and Cooperation Mechanism. In August, on the eve of the first National Ecological Day, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court jointly issued the Interpretations on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Environmental Pollution, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Water Resources and the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, formulated special opinions to improve the coordination mechanism between administrative law enforcement and procuratorial public interest litigation...

Not only government agencies, but also procuratorial organs are committed to improving the social support work mechanism and mobilizing a wider range of social forces to participate in the defense of green waters and green mountains. In particular, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the central committees of various democratic parties jointly built a volunteer procuratorial cloud platform called "Benefiting the Public Good", relying on public forces to discover and solve public welfare damage problems in the field of environmental resource protection. Up to now, the platform has registered 76,000 volunteers and submitted 11,000 case leads.

"General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that 'green water and green mountains are gold and silver mountains'. As a practitioner of agroecology, I have experienced it firsthand. The series of special activities carried out by procuratorial and administrative organs around illegal and criminal acts of the ecological environment, as well as the typical cases released and the rules and regulations established, vividly demonstrated to the public the great efforts made by the Party and the government in ecological environmental protection, emphasized the legal responsibility that must be borne for damaging the ecological environment, and highlighted the judicial power to protect beautiful China. Yue Qiaoyun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of the Green Farmers Xingyun Fruit Production and Marketing Professional Cooperative in Pinggu District, Beijing, commented.

[Source: Supreme People's Procuratorate]