A river connects the north and the south, connecting the ancient and modern for thousands of years. The Millennium Canal is like a sparkling chain of memory beads passing through the city, telling the brilliant past and present of the development and changes of the sub-central city.
There are so many ways to tell the story of the canal. The excavation of the Grand Canal can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in the 7th century BC, and it has witnessed the history of transportation and water conservancy development in ancient China. As the development of the sub-center of the city continues to move to a higher dimension, the positioning of the green industry attracts high-end elements to accelerate the agglomeration, and a number of key projects have been implemented in the canal business district, empowering and increasing the efficiency of the sub-center to build a national green development demonstration zone, and the ancient Grand Canal is full of vitality in the new era.
The blue waves and smoke, the river soup soup, and the thousand-year-old canal condense the historical context; The ancient charm and the modern style reflect each other, and green justice stirs up a new chapter in ecological civilization.
A framework agreement for collaborative governance
"After the new rain of Pufan is unharmed, a tower shadow recognizes Tongzhou." This is the Buddha relics pagoda in the poems of the Qing Dynasty poet Wang Weizhen, and it also carries people's good memories of the northern starting point of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. However, in modern times, the Tongzhou section of the Grand Canal has carried 90% of the drainage tasks in Beijing's urban area, and has become a sewage channel for urban residents' domestic sewage.
After ten years of governance, the Beijing section of the Grand Canal is now clear and green, gulls and herons soar and gather, blue waves ripple, and all things coexist. This is mainly due to the fact that in recent years, the sub-center has continued to carry out comprehensive management work such as the Blue Sky Defense War and the Qinghe Operation. "Living by the canal, we have witnessed the changes of the canal in the past ten years. During this period, the Tongzhou Court took a step forward and took the initiative to properly handle more than 100 disputes caused by the vacancy of 'scattered and polluted' enterprises and industrial compounds, and protected the beauty of the Millennium Canal with a rigid rule of law. Zhang Jing, a member of the party group and vice president of the Tongzhou Court, said.
The year 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the Grand Canal's successful inscription on the World Heritage List and the 10th anniversary of the National Strategy for the Coordinated Development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. In order to unite the ecological and cultural protection of the Grand Canal, the Tongzhou Court invited Tianjin Beichen Court, Tianjin Hongqiao Court, Tianjin Wuqing Court, Hebei Xianghe Court and other courts along the North Canal to hold a seminar on the protection of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Grand Canal under the theme of "Gathering the Power of the Rule of Law and Protecting the Millennium Canal" to discuss the judicial coordination and protection of the Grand Canal.
At the seminar, the five courts jointly signed the Framework Agreement on Strengthening Judicial Cooperation on the Protection of the Grand Canal, and jointly established cooperation mechanisms such as cross-regional litigation services, environmental resources trials, investigation and research, trial management, and joint demonstration of social actions to protect the Grand Canal. The words are letters, solemn promises, and judicial brushstrokes are used to add a strong stroke to the grand blueprint of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei judicial coordination.
Looking at the riverbank, the prosperity of the "Oriental Chemical Plant" is vivid, but with the transformation and upgrading of Beijing's industrial structure and the acceleration of the construction of the sub-center, the former heavily polluted chemical agglomeration area has been transformed into an "urban green heart forest park", and large country forest parks such as the Grand Canal Forest Park and the Taihu 10,000 Mu Recreation Park can be seen everywhere.
In the process of promoting the comprehensive management of the ecological environment, the judges of Tongzhou Court have also made a lot of efforts. In June 2023, the Tongzhou Court listed the "Ecological Law Popularization Station" in the Grand Canal Forest Park and gave on-site lectures, and joined hands with the Landscaping Bureau of Tongzhou District, Beijing to dress up the "high value" of the Tongzhou Grand Canal. Since then, similar ecological popularization stations have also settled in the habitat of the Great Bustard, Shuinan Village, Taihu Town, Taihu 10,000 Mu Recreation Park and other sub-central ecological landmarks, escorting lucid waters and lush mountains under the rule of law.
A hearty collision of ideas
Downstream, at the confluence of the five rivers, modern buildings such as the Beiguan Gate, Daguang Tower, Qianhe Lagoon Bridge, and Canal Business District complement each other. The Canal Business District is a pioneer area for urban construction and a cluster area for ESG green industrial bases. With a number of green development industry, investment and research institutions such as the Beijing Green Exchange settled in the sub-center of the city, promoting the green and high-quality development of the jurisdiction and maintaining the security of green finance have become a must-answer question for the judges of Tongzhou Court.
In order to play a good green judicial first move, the Tongzhou People's Court went to the Beijing Green Exchange to conduct research, strengthen collaborative co-governance, information sharing and talent co-cultivation in the field of green finance, and explore the establishment of a long-term cooperation mechanism for the legal guarantee of green and sustainable development. "But this is far from enough, the national carbon emission trading market has been officially launched, the certified voluntary emission reduction trading market is about to restart, more than 100 billion carbon trading market waiting to be released, environmental protection judges need to take the 'carbon brain' to catch the exam, and strive to be the 'carbon' road on the road to carbon reduction." Liang Lianlin, president of the Taihu Court (Environmental Resources Court), immediately set up a "dual carbon" legal theory discussion group, collected carbon trading literature and typical cases, and organized environmental resources judges to participate in carbon asset management training, so as to make adequate preparations for the dual carbon trial.
Think is prepared, be prepared. In November 2023, the Tongzhou Court accepted two carbon emission trading dispute cases, which are the first tax-related cases involving certified voluntary emission reduction trading in China, and the handling of the cases involves the determination of CCER trading rules, especially tax rules, which has an important exemplary role in regulating the CCER trading market and helping to achieve the "30·60" dual carbon goal. On June 3, 2024, Liang Lianlin, Yu Sujuan, Ma Shuai, judges of the court's environmental resources trial team, and four people's assessors with professional knowledge of environmental resources formed a seven-member collegial panel to hear the two cases in public.
On July 10, 2024, a seminar on the application of laws related to carbon emission trading was held in Beijing, and more than 40 experts and scholars gathered in Tongzhou to gather wisdom for the judiciary to help promote new quality productivity. Liang Lianlin made a keynote speech on the legal nature of carbon emission allowances and certified voluntary emission reductions. She believes that carbon emission rights should shift from "nature dispute" to "application meaning", provide a relatively broad development space for the design of carbon trading system, and help stimulate the vitality of the carbon market. She suggested that in view of the cross-cutting issues, we should strengthen the collaborative governance of "dual carbon" disputes, deepen cooperation and exchanges between departments, and jointly explore a new path for "dual carbon" governance.
A brilliant civil judgment
The key to the high-quality development of environmental resources adjudication work lies in continuously deepening conceptual change. With the continuous enrichment of material and cultural life, the people's demand for a beautiful ecological environment is growing day by day, and the people have changed from "looking forward to food and clothing" to "looking forward to environmental protection", from "survival" to "ecology", hoping that the sky will be bluer, the mountains will be greener, the water will be clearer, and the environment will be more beautiful. Judge Ma Shuai encountered a case that left him in a dilemma.
At the beginning of this year, Xiao Wang bought a new energy vehicle, but he has been facing parking problems. Xiao Wang and the property company signed two parking space lease agreements respectively, and the two parking spaces are located in the courtyard and outside the courtyard respectively, and both are designated to park the same new energy passenger car of Xiao Wang. Regarding the parking space outside the hospital, Xiao Wang also signed the "Agreement on the Installation and Safe Use of New Energy Passenger Car Charging Facilities" with the property company to agree on the installation. During the performance of the contract, Xiao Wang believed that the parking space outside the hospital was too far away from his home, and not only did not install charging piles, but instead sued the property management company to cooperate with him to install charging piles in the parking spaces in the hospital.
The property company's lawsuit against Xiao Wang is very incomprehensible, the construction time of the community is early, the transformer capacity is low, and the random installation of charging piles in the hospital is very easy to cause safety accidents. However, considering the needs of the owners to use new energy vehicles, the property company took the initiative to apply to the relevant departments to set up new energy parking spaces in the area outside the courtyard of the community, and upgraded the transformer to facilitate the installation of charging facilities for new energy vehicles. Unexpectedly, he was sued for doing good things, and the manager of the property company felt very aggrieved.
Ma Shuai is also a new energy vehicle owner and understands the difficulty of charging new energy vehicles, so he decided to take a look at the community involved in the case. This look gave Ma Shuai a new idea about the case. The property management company carried out zoning management of the oil truck parking spaces and new energy parking spaces in the residential area involved in the case, and the oil truck parking spaces in the courtyard were relatively dense and close to the residential area. The new energy parking space is in a relatively empty area outside the courtyard of the community, with significant charging safety tips, complete fire-fighting equipment, high parking density, and there is also a passage between the new energy parking space and the community to facilitate the owners to enter and exit.
At this time, Ma Shuai's thinking on the handling of the case has gradually become clear, and he decided to use the "green principles" of the Civil Code to determine the score and stop the dispute, because the "green principles" should not only empower green development, but also regulate green development. On the surface, Xiao Wang's appeal is to promote the convenient use of new energy vehicles, but the essence is to maximize the benefits of his own contract, in the case of dense flow of people and parking spaces in the community, he abandons new energy parking spaces and requires the installation of charging piles on oil vehicle parking spaces, which not only violates the contract but also inevitably causes potential safety risks to the surrounding environment, and it is necessary to add consideration to public interests and social responsibilities, and make necessary restrictions on private interests. On the contrary, the practice of property management companies respects the principle of autonomy of will, and on the basis of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of civil subjects, it takes into account the security of transactions and ecological security, which is in line with the legislative intent of the green principle. In the end, Ma Shuai adopted the opinions of the property company and disagreed with Xiao Wang's installation of charging piles in the parking space of the fuel truck in the hospital. After the verdict was handed down, Xiao Wang did not appeal. The case was also included in the case database of the people's court.
"As a judge of environmental resources, I have always adhered to the belief that for every case and every judgment made, it is not only the condensation of words, but also the practice of serving and guaranteeing the construction of Chinese-style modernization and beautiful China." Ma Shuai wrote down the above paragraph after the verdict.
Judge Cui Huan also paid attention to the new characteristics and trends in the trial of civil cases involving new energy vehicle charging disputes. With the increase in the number of charging piles, the use of charging piles may involve issues such as public safety, owners' right to know, and privacy, and conflicts of interest between relevant entities are gradually emerging. In addition, as a high-voltage energized equipment, charging piles are prone to potential safety hazards in the process of use, resulting in management pressure on property companies and business committees, and the contradictions and disputes involving charging piles have changed from "whether they can be safe" to "how to be safe" to "how to manage". To this end, Cui Huan led the research team to form a 10,000-word research report, and held a briefing on the trial, put forward work suggestions for the problems behind the rapid development of new energy charging infrastructure, and actively promote the source resolution of civil cases involving new energy vehicle charging disputes, so that more car owners are willing to use new energy vehicles, so that more communities are willing to provide convenience for new energy vehicle charging, and inject strong legal momentum into the development of new quality productivity.
From the thousands of miles of boats and fishing fires in the historical time, to the abundance of people and the clear water and green banks in the real picture, the Grand Canal runs through the north and south, and traverses the ancient and modern. Standing at the crossroads of history, between the ancient and the modern, the judges of Tongzhou Court also carry the cultural heritage of the thousand-year-old canal on the one hand, and escort the high-quality development of the green industry on the other.
Contributed by: Tongzhou Court
Editor: Ji Xinrui Xiao Fei
Review: Wang Fang