Layout of People's Daily on October 26
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed: "Improve the public interest litigation system. A few days ago, the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress deliberated the report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the procuratorial work of the people's procuratorate on the protection of the ecological environment and resources. The report recommends that special legislation for procuratorial public interest litigation be accelerated, and that systematic provisions be made on the positioning, scope, procedures, and supporting safeguards of procuratorial public interest litigation.
In July 2017, the procuratorial public interest litigation system was fully implemented, and ecological environment and resource protection were one of the "four statutory areas" initially identified. According to the relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, at present, this field has become the most important field of public interest litigation prosecution, with the largest number of cases, the richest types of cases, the widest coverage, and the greatest social impact. As of December 2022, procuratorial organs across the country had handled more than 400,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, accounting for 52.3% of the total number of cases.
In practice, what are the "hard bones" of public interest litigation in the field of ecological environment and resource protection? How to resolve the problems of ecological and environmental governance in a legal manner, form a joint force for public welfare protection, and promote the construction of a beautiful China? The reporter interviewed about this.
Boost the solution to the long-term unresolved
Stubborn diseases of ecological and environmental protection
Huayuan County in Hunan, Songtao Miao Autonomous County in Guizhou and Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County in Chongqing are located in the hinterland of Wuling Mountain, which is known as the "Manganese Triangle" because of its abundant and concentrated manganese ore resources. In recent years, from Hunan Province to Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture and Huayuan County, relevant departments have carried out multiple rounds of rectification of the "manganese triangle" mining pollution problem, but it has never reached the expected goal. In this regard, the Hunan Provincial Procuratorate is led by public interest litigation, integrates the four major procuratorial functions, promotes comprehensive governance in a legal manner, and unswervingly protects lucid waters and lush mountains.
"The 'manganese triangle' mining pollution spans a long time, involves a wide range of fields, and has many remaining problems, so I really felt 'a lot of pressure' at the beginning." The prosecutor handling the case of the "Manganese Triangle" mining pollution control task force in Huayuan County, Hunan Province, said that through the preliminary investigation, the task force has identified the "five major foci" such as the difficulty of criminal crackdown, the difficulty of implementing responsibility, the difficulty of resolving contradictions, the difficulty of joint formation, and the difficulty of green development, and has formed a consensus on taking public interest litigation as the entry point.
In the "manganese triangle" rectification, the procuratorial organs handled a total of 69 administrative public interest litigation cases and 17 civil public interest litigation cases, supervised the restoration of 7,000 acres of destroyed forestland, cultivated land and wetlands, and recovered and cleaned up 1 million cubic meters of solid waste and domestic waste. After industry-wide governance, in 2022, Huayuan County was included in the National Green Mining Development Demonstration Zone, and the air quality improvement ranked first in the province.
"For the long-term unresolved stubborn diseases of ecological and environmental protection, the procuratorial organs have resolutely gnawed the 'hard bones' through active performance of duties and continuous supervision." Xu Xiangchun, director of the Eighth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said that in July 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate launched a three-year special supervision activity of "public interest litigation to protect a better life" across the country, focusing on the handling of cases in key areas such as ecological environment and resource protection, and handled a number of influential, high-quality and efficient cases.
According to reports, for the problem of public interest damage that cannot be resolved by pre-litigation procedures, the procuratorate resolutely uses the confirmation of "litigation" to reflect the guidance of judicial value. In response to the serious damage to the planting conditions of agricultural land, the People's Procuratorate of Lanshan District, Rizhao City, Shandong Province, after urging the administrative organs to perform their duties and failing to repair the damaged public welfare through procuratorial recommendations, filed an administrative public interest lawsuit in accordance with the law to promote the rectification of illegal occupation of land, curb the "non-farming" of cultivated land, and prevent the "non-grain" of cultivated land.
As of August 2023, the special supervision activities have supervised the restoration of 1.225 million mu of polluted water sources, cleaned up 34,680 kilometers of polluted and illegally occupied rivers, and cleaned up 503,200 mu of polluted waters;
Focus on cracking cross-basins
Cross-regional ecological governance problems
Rivers, lakes, mountains, etc., are a complete ecosystem. Therefore, cross-regional and cross-departmental collaborative protection is an unavoidable issue for public interest litigation in the field of ecological environment and resource protection.
The Wujiang River is the largest river in Guizhou and is known as the "Mother River" of Guizhou. In recent years, some towns and towns in the upper reaches of the main stream of the Wujiang River, Guiyang, Qiannan and Zunyi counties have dumped garbage, and the management of some scenic spots along the coast is not standardized, coupled with the dumping of domestic garbage and construction waste in the rivers and embankments of some tributaries of the Wujiang River, resulting in a large amount of garbage being washed into the main stream of the Wujiang River to form floating debris when the flood season comes, seriously damaging the ecological environment of the Wujiang River basin, and also posing a serious threat to the navigation safety and flood safety of the main and tributaries of the Wujiang River.
How to solve the problem of ecological and environmental governance involving many places? On December 1, 2021, the Guizhou Provincial People's Procuratorate filed a case on the basis of the case, and dispatched more than 60 cadres and police officers from provincial, municipal, and county-level procuratorates to form a case-handling team to unify the direction of case handling and implement work arrangements. At the same time, the Guizhou Provincial People's Procuratorate relied on the integrated case-handling mechanism to hand over clues to the local procuratorate involved in the case, and a total of 103 cases were filed.
During the handling of the case, the task force followed up and supervised through on-site inspections, commissioned inspections, discussions and consultations, etc., and the relevant departments have supervised the salvage of 14,000 square meters of floating objects and the cleaning of more than 100 kilometers of river sections. Remarkable results have been achieved in the control of floating debris and water pollution in the Wujiang River Basin.
"Different regions face different realities and interests, and it is easy to have differences in the strength, goals and steps of protection." The relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate said that cross-regional and cross-departmental coordination of ecological environment and resource protection is a difficult point, and it is also the focus of the procuratorate when carrying out public interest litigation work.
In recent years, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and provincial-level procuratorates have stepped up their efforts to handle cases on their own, focusing on ecological and environmental problems that are seriously damaged to the public welfare, have a large social impact, have a high level of supervision objects, or have cross-basin and cross-regional characteristics, directly file and handle cases, and promote the solution of problems from point to area, and have successfully handled a series of major cross-regional cases such as Wanfeng Lake and Nansi Lake, helping to solve a large number of ecological and environmental governance problems.
At the same time, through cross-regional cooperation and coordination of various departments, the procuratorial organs have promoted the systematic resolution of the problem of damage to the public interest. In terms of exploring the construction of cross-regional jurisdictional coordination mechanisms, the Supreme People's Procuratorate formulated the "Guiding Opinions on Cross-Administrative Jurisdiction of Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation (for Trial Implementation)", and procuratorial organs at all levels actively promoted the countersigning of regional procuratorial cooperation opinions based on the characteristics of the environment, region, and river basins, and strived to solve problems such as separate governance, insufficient linkage, and obstacles to resistance. In terms of improving external coordination and cooperation mechanisms, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has established coordination mechanisms with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Water Resources and other ministries and commissions, and strengthened coordination and cooperation with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Forestry and Grassland Administration in natural resources and biodiversity conservation.
Convergence of public interest litigation protection
Greater synergy of the ecological environment
The Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River has developed shipping and dense ships, but it has also brought pressure on the prevention and control of ship pollution. In accordance with the deployment of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Jiangsu Provincial Procuratorate has actively played its public interest litigation procuratorial function to carry out supervision in response to problems such as imperfect pollutant reception facilities, non-standard transfer and disposal, and disjointed supervision of the "Boat Port City". In handling the case, the Jiangsu Provincial Procuratorate has built a legal supervision model, and widely used technologies such as rapid detection of water quality, soil, and atmosphere, as well as drone aerial photography, to support the handling of the case. At the same time, it promoted the "Benefiting the Public" volunteer procuratorial cloud platform, recruited more than 10,000 volunteers, and submitted nearly 2,000 clues.
"Ecological environmental protection is a systematic project, and it is necessary to deepen multi-party coordination and build a multi-party participation pattern for ecological and environmental public interest litigation." The relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate said that the governance of the ecological environment requires the comprehensive use of various means such as administration, market, rule of law, science and technology, etc., and also requires the participation of the whole society.
In recent years, procuratorial organs have given full play to the role of modern science and technology. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has cooperated with the Aerospace Information Innovation Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Environmental Testing General Station and other units to promote the use of satellite remote sensing and technical detection methods in handling cases, and is at the forefront of international justice on the ecological environment. In terms of digital procuratorial empowerment of legal supervision, relying on the big data legal supervision application model to discover clues for the supervision of similar cases in batches.
The use of science and technology has also given procuratorial organs a "digital wing" to guide the public to participate in ecological and environmental governance in an orderly manner. The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) has deployed and built the "Benefiting the Public" volunteer procuratorial cloud platform, which integrates functions such as lead reporting, lead assessment, professional consultation, participation in hearings, follow-up observation, and public interest protection and rule of law publicity, to provide support for public interest litigation case handling. At present, more than 80,000 volunteers have registered on the national "Benefiting the Public" procuratorial cloud platform.
"In recent years, procuratorial organs have handled public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, and while promoting the restoration of damaged ecology, they have paid more attention to actively performing their duties in accordance with the law and promoting source governance." Xu Xiangchun said that for the problem of public welfare damage with complex causes and easy to rebound repeatedly, the procuratorial organs should pay more attention to the "second half of the article" while urging the administrative organs to perform their duties in accordance with the law and promote the restoration of the damaged public welfare, so as to achieve long-term protection of national interests and social public interests.
Source: People's Daily, Supreme People's Procuratorate (WeChat public account)