The New Environmental Protection Law Has Been Implemented For A Year.

Since the implementation of the revised environmental protection law in January 1, 2015, it has been full of anticipation and made people feel the power of the "most stringent system". It has encountered both the blame for "extrajudicial enforcement" and the accusation of increasing the downward pressure on the economy.

How to rationally consider the effect of this Law and its implementation? Recently, Lv Zhongmei, vice chairman of the CPPCC Committee on social and legal affairs and vice president of the China environment and Resources Law Research Association, said in an interview that the law "grew teeth" and broke through the principles of "urban legislation, enterprise legislation and pollution legislation", and established the principles of "protection priority, prevention first, comprehensive management, public participation and responsibility for damage", promoted the establishment of a green development mode based on environmental carrying capacity, established a modern environmental governance system with multiple co governance, improved the system of ecological environmental protection and environmental pollution prevention and control, increased the environmental information disclosure and public participation system, and strengthened the obligations and responsibilities of the government, enterprises and citizens.

Looking back on history, China has started environmental legislation since 1979. Up to now, there are more than 30 laws, but various facts show that the role of environmental law has not been brought into full play.

Lv Zhongmei bluntly said that people suffered from the "heart and lung disease" of air pollution, the "heart trouble" of water pollution and the "heart trouble" of food safety, but they did not feel the power and authority of the environmental law.

Some local governments pursue GDP growth performance at the expense of the ecological environment. The environmental protection departments often become "meritorious ministers" because of their "full help".

The environmental law has been criticized for being called "toothless tiger", and the environmental protection department has even been dubbed "no environmental protection department".

In view of the problems such as the system and mechanism are not smooth, the system can not be landed and the implementation difficulties are difficult, the new environmental protection law establishes the environmental governance system of pluralistic co governance and social participation by defining the rights and obligations of the government, enterprises and individuals.

At the same time, we should strengthen the government's obligations and responsibilities, improve the supervision system, establish the system of environmental protection assessment, public participation and public interest litigation, and administrative accountability system.

It embodies the requirement of "the most stringent system" to protect the ecological environment, and brings the environmental protection law to "high voltage electricity".

However, because the new environmental protection law is positioned as a basic law in the field of environmental protection, it is impossible to specify specific operational content.

How to "pmit electricity" and "pform electricity" and make "high pressure" play a role is particularly important.

In order to ensure the implementation of the new environmental protection law, the formulation of supporting laws, regulations and policies has become a top priority.

In fact, the environmental protection legislation in 2015 was very active, and formulated 85 laws, regulations, regulations and normative documents.

In addition to the revised air pollution prevention and control law adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the State Council and the general office of the State Council, the Ministry of environmental protection, the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of land and resources, the Ministry of water resources and the Ministry of Agriculture issued 84 departmental regulations and normative documents.

In addition, the Ministry of environmental protection has jointly issued the green procurement guide (Trial Implementation) with the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of industry and information technology, and recommended to the society "technical guidelines for environmental damage assessment and evaluation".

The issuance of these regulations and normative documents has woven the "cage" of the new environmental protection law more finely, so that the idea of protecting the ecological environment with the rule of law and the rule of law can be truly implemented.

In view of the fact that the law can only provide administrative accountability, but the responsibility of the environmental protection responsibility of the Party committee can not be written into the law and be reduced to the virtual situation, the CPC Central Committee has comprehensively deepened the reform and the leading group has studied the issue of environmental protection "party and government responsibility" and made a decision.

Since July 2015, the central government office and the state run government have issued a series of environmental protection supervision plans (Trial Implementation) and the ecological environment monitoring network construction plan and other series of documents to establish the system of "party and government responsibility" for environmental protection. It is clear that party and government leaders have the same responsibility for protecting the ecological environment, they are equally responsible for violating their duties, and carry out lifelong accountability.

From a theoretical point of view, the party's decision in the fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee clearly incorporated the party's laws and regulations into the state's rule of law system, and solved the problem of "party and government responsibility" from "reason" to "legal principle", from "policy" to "Regulations".

From the point of view of system design, there is an inherent logical connection between environmental protection inspectors, ecological environment monitoring network construction, leading cadres' natural resource assets outgoing audit, natural resources balance sheet preparation and accountability of Party and government leaders' ecological environment damage.

"Theoretical elaboration and legislative arrangement form a lifelong accountability system for the party and government leading cadres' ecological environment damage.

Among them, the establishment of an environmental Inspectorate working mechanism is the starting point, laying the foundation for the strict implementation of the main responsibility of environmental protection, the improvement of the target responsibility assessment system for leading cadres, the investigation of leadership responsibilities and regulatory responsibilities.

Lv Zhongmei told reporters.

The life of law lies in its implementation, and the fine "cage" is no more than a mere scrap of paper.

After the implementation of the new environmental protection law, the Ministry of environmental protection exercised various law enforcement powers according to law, such as daily penalty, seizure, seizure, production restriction, and public interviews.

Iron hand law enforcement is exhilarating.

In 2015, the minister called you to talk with the government, and became a buzzword.

Lv Zhongmei pointed out that although government supervision is only a kind of "flexible" administrative behavior, the main body of responsibility is admonishing and warning, but with the following "rigid measures" such as "regional limited approval", "Listing Supervision and management" and "media disclosure", the "rigidity" of environmental supervision and consultation has gradually emerged.

In March 2015, the Ministry of environmental protection stopped the Jinsha River Xiaonan hydropower station which had been arguing for many years on the grounds of "strictly protecting the red line of ecological protection".

In February 2015, after being interviewed by the Linyi city of Shandong Province, the municipal government decided to carry out deadline management for 412 enterprises, and 57 enterprises to stop production management. The production line without environmental approvals in iron and steel, coking, cement, electrolytic aluminum, flat glass and other industries with serious excess capacity was shut down according to law according to the approval of the Ministry of environmental protection, which aroused great concern from the society and the media. "The new environmental law is the cause of the economic downturn, and the sound of environmental protection affecting employment and people's livelihood" sounded.

Facing the accusation of environmental protection dragging down economic development, the Ministry of environmental protection responded strongly and organized a survey of Linyi. The results showed that in 2015 1, May, Linyi's general public budget revenue was 12 billion 90 million yuan, an increase of 12.8%, an increase of second in the province.

Pollution control not only improves the quality of the atmospheric environment, but also speeds up the pformation of the polluting industries, optimizes the industrial structure and adjusts the industrial layout.

At the same time, the Ministry of environmental protection has also organized a special investigation on the relationship between environmental protection and economic operation. Through field investigation in Zhejiang and other places, the report on the impact of environmental protection on the economy under the new normal has been formed, and the facts are used to speak.

"The new environmental protection law has given the environmental protection departments various kinds of law enforcement powers such as daily fines, seizure, seizure, production restriction, and public interviews. The party and government responsibilities have also been clearly stipulated. The landing of the system depends on strict implementation, and more depends on the serious handling of those who dare to test the law."

Lv Zhongmei said.

In November 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced the results of the special planning and assessment of water pollution control in key river basins in 2014. It named the area with the lowest score of water quality in the failing assessment provinces, the Chaoyang District District of Beijing city and Jinghai County of Tianjin City, which failed to control the control units.

Under the coordinated implementation of multi departments, the system of Party and government responsibility is "landed" in a specific way of implementation.

On September 14, 2015, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Ministry of Supervision announced that Wang Zhaojun and Zhang Huaide, the Secretary of the Pingyu county Party committee of Henan Zhumadian County, and the county magistrate, Yang Li, had to deal with the admonishing conversation. The deputy magistrate of Pingyu county was given administrative punishment, and Hu Chaofeng, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Pingyu County, and Huo Lin, deputy director of the Pingyu Industrial Cluster Management Committee, were given administrative demotion.

The direct reason for their punishment is that they failed to implement the statement of the Ministry of environmental protection.

Pingyu county leadership is the first case to be investigated for environmental responsibility.

Subsequently, the Discipline Inspection Commission also informed a number of similar cases.

The Discipline Inspection Commission investigates and investigates, implements the party and government responsibility, simultaneously accountability, has become the new environmental protection law implementation "the heavy weapon".

The new environmental protection law clearly stipulates the main responsibility of enterprises in the prevention and control of environmental pollution and the protection of the ecological environment.

Increasing the penalties and raising the cost of breaking the law is a big stick for the implementation of the new environmental protection law.

In an interview with Chinese and foreign media, Chen Jining, Minister of the Ministry of environmental protection, said that as of the end of 2015, there were 7155 consecutive cases of punishment in the country, with a fine of nearly 569 million yuan, 4191 cases of seizure and detention, and 3106 cases of limiting production and stopping production.

Environmental protection departments at all levels issued 97 thousand decisions on administrative penalties and fined 4 billion 250 million yuan.

A total of more than 177 enterprises have been inspected by the whole country, and 19.1 illegal enterprises have been investigated and dealt with. They have been ordered to close down and ban 2, stop production of 3.4, and make 8.9 corrections within a time limit.

2079 cases of administrative detention were pferred to 1685 suspected cases of environmental pollution.

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"Environmental protection is mainly based on administrative mechanism, which is the basic idea of environmental protection legislation in the past, and the role played by justice in environmental protection is very limited."

In an interview with reporters, Lv Zhongmei pointed out that the new environmental protection law has perfected the environmental legal liability system and established an environmental public interest litigation system, which has provided the institutional foundation for the judicial organs to perform their duties according to law and protect the environment.

In order to cooperate with the implementation of the new environmental protection law, the court set up a special judicial organization. The procuratorate actively promotes the trial of public interest litigation, formulates judicial interpretation and judicial policy, establishes judicial mechanisms and unimpeded trial channels, and makes judicial environmental protection functions more prominent.

The Supreme People's Court promulgated the "opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening the trial of environmental resources, providing a strong judicial guarantee for the promotion of ecological civilization construction", and strengthened top-level design and provided policy guidelines.

It has formulated "interpretation of several issues applicable to environmental civil public interest litigation cases", "interpretation of several issues applicable to environmental tort liability disputes cases", issued typical cases, and unified the yardstick of judgment.

The Supreme People's court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the interpretation of several issues concerning the application of law in criminal cases involving environmental pollution.

In June 2014, the Supreme Court established the environmental resources tribunal.

As of September 2015, a total of 24 provinces, municipalities and people's courts set up environmental resources tribunal, collegiate bench and circuit courts totaling 456.

9 High Courts such as Guizhou have set up a trial forum for environmental resources, and three provinces, including Fujian, Guizhou, Jiangsu and Hainan, have set up a three level environmental resource trial organization system.

At the same time, environmental public interest litigation is also actively and steadily advancing.

The Supreme Court and the Ministry of civil affairs and the Ministry of environmental protection jointly issued the notice on implementing the system of environmental civil public interest litigation, which provided convenience for litigation of environmental protection public interest organizations.

The courts of Fujian, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hebei and Jiangsu promote linkage with the work of public security, procuratorial and environmental resources administrative law enforcement departments, and establish a comprehensive environmental dispute resolution mechanism to form the resultant force of environmental resources protection.

Some local courts actively explore the establishment of an environmental resource case jurisdiction system that is appropriately separated from administrative divisions.

According to the watershed scope of the main rivers, the Guizhou high court court will divide the province into four ecological judicial protection plates, and 4 intermediate courts and 5 grass-roots courts shall exercise centralized jurisdiction over environmental protection cases.

The courts of Hubei, Guangdong and Xinjiang have been approved by the Supreme Court to decide that some intermediate courts have centralized administration over environmental public interest litigation cases.

Fujian, Jiangsu, Guizhou and other places in the three provincial courts of the whole province have fully implemented the "two in one" or "three in one" mode of environmental resources civil, administrative and criminal cases. The courts in Guizhou Qingzhen, Chongqing Wanzhou and Shandong Lan Ling have implemented the "four in one" mode including executive functions.

On July 1, 2015, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the decision to authorize the Supreme People's Procuratorate to carry out pilot work on public interest litigation in some areas.

The following day, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the "pilot scheme for public interest litigation initiated by procuratorial organs", and launched public interest litigation in the procuratorates of 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government of Beijing, Guizhou and Fujian.

As of the end of 2015, more than 500 cases were investigated by procuratorial organs, most of which were rectified by the procedures before the litigation, and the administrative organs violted the law or did not perform their duties in accordance with the law to protect the ecological environment, and filed 8 environmental public interest litigation. Two of them had been decided by the first instance, and the procuratorial organs were all successful.

In November 2015, the Supreme People's court held the first National Conference on environmental justice, reviewed the environmental justice work since the implementation of the new environmental law, analyzed the new situation, new tasks and new challenges facing the environmental trial work, and clarified the direction of "providing a more effective judicial protection for the purpose of accelerating the promotion of ecological civilization construction by promoting the environmental resources trial work," and determined the goal of promoting the specialization of judicial institutions, specialization of trial mechanisms, specialization of trial procedures, specialization of trial theories and specialization of trial teams.

"Ecological environment protection involves economic, political, social, cultural and other aspects. Environmental problems are also comprehensive problems of science and technology, economic structure, development mode and people's life. Building ecological civilization and achieving sustainable development are inseparable from public participation."

Lv Zhongmei said.

The new environmental protection law has set up a chapter to stipulate information disclosure and public participation, and establish a public participation mechanism for environmental protection in China.

The perfect public participation needs to give citizens the right to know, participate, express and supervise.

In July 2015, the Ministry of environmental protection issued the "public participation in environmental protection". According to the present situation of public participation in environmental protection, we clearly defined the right of citizens, legal persons and other organizations to obtain environmental information, participate in and supervise environmental protection, and emphasize the principle of public participation in accordance with the law, order, voluntariness and convenience. Based on the actual situation, we defined the basic procedural rules, which provided operational norms for the implementation of the new environmental protection law.

Some local environmental protection authorities have also issued guiding opinions to guide non-governmental organizations to participate in environmental protection.

At the same time, the Ministry of environmental protection has vigorously promoted the disclosure of government environmental information, opened the official WeChat and micro-blog, and asked all levels of environmental protection departments to set up.

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To encourage the director of the environmental protection department to establish their own micro-blog and WeChat.

Some of the information that was hard to see in the past was published on the Ministry of environmental protection's website or other media.

In October 20th last year, the Ministry of environmental protection published the inspection report of the northeastern environmental protection inspection center on the Internet, and asked Dalian to submit the rectification plan to the Ministry of environmental protection before November 25, 2015.

Because the pollution control facilities are not perfect, excessive discharge and illegal disposal of hazardous waste are more prominent environmental problems. The mayor of Wuxi, Jiangsu is interviewed by the Ministry of environmental protection.

Courts at all levels vigorously promote the disclosure of judicial information, unimpede the channels for accepting cases, clarify the main body qualifications, and encourage social organizations to initiate environmental civil public interest litigation.

Appoint people's jurors to set up expert database for environmental resources trial.

The referee, which is open and effective online, will implement the notice system of accepting and mediating cases of environmental public interest litigation, so as to protect the public's right to know.

The court hearings for major cases were conducted and the trial information of environmental resources was released in time. Courts in Longyan, Zhangzhou, Nanping, Kunming, Guiyang and other places also established carbon sink education bases, public welfare forests and ecological demonstration parks, strengthened laws and regulations publicity, and enhanced public awareness of ecological civilization.

Some environmental protection public welfare organizations have taken an active part in environmental impact assessment, ecological protection, supervision of polluters and public interest litigation.

According to statistics from the Civil Affairs Bureau of the Civil Affairs Department, by the third quarter of 2014, there were more than 700 non-governmental organizations that met the qualification for environmental public interest litigation.

Since the implementation of the new environmental protection law, more than 30 environmental public interest litigation initiated by 9 social organizations has been accepted by the courts. Among them, public interest litigation cases such as protecting ancient villages and protecting biodiversity are the first environmental protection public interest organizations.