Procuratorial organs play public interest litigation and administrative procuratorial functions to serve the construction of beautiful China.

Build a harmonious beautiful homeland.

-Procuratorial organs play public interest litigation and administrative procuratorial functions to serve the construction of beautiful China.

"Everything has its own harmony and life, and each has its own cultivation."

In Liaodong Bay, 23 spotted seals were rushed home after being rescued in time by procuratorial organs and multi-departments. On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the procuratorial organs of Qinghai Province continued to carry out special activities to strengthen the public welfare judicial protection of wild yak; From Wanfeng Lake to the Yangtze River, cross-regional law enforcement and judicial linkage along the great rivers and lakes guards the blue waves; New environmental pollution problems such as urban light pollution and air pollution have entered the field of public interest litigation.……

The Opinions of the State Council City, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Promoting the Construction of Beautiful China in an All-round Way recently demanded that "public interest litigation should be improved and judicial protection in the field of ecological environment should be strengthened". In recent years, the procuratorial organs have been guided by the supreme leader’s thought of ecological civilization and the supreme leader’s thought of rule of law, fully performing the functions of public interest litigation and administrative procuratorial work, and have further thought and practice in exploring and better handling the most basic relationship between man and nature.

Focus on solving major cross-regional ecological and environmental problems

On September 22, 2022, some media reporters and prosecutors patrolled the lake together to check the water quality of Wanfeng Lake after treatment.

Over the years, the problem of aquaculture pollution in Wanfeng Lake basin has been puzzling the people along the lake, and it has also been listed as a key issue by the Central Environmental Protection Inspector Group. However, due to the inconsistent law enforcement in three provinces and five counties (districts), it has not been solved from the root for a long time.

The protection of ecological environment and resources has the characteristics of systematicness, integrity and coordination across departments, fields and regions. How to solve cross-regional ecological and environmental problems? In particular, there is insufficient linkage in joint law enforcement and justice in the tributaries, upstream and downstream, and left and right banks of major rivers and lakes, and it is difficult to handle cross-regional cases, which is difficult to trace and has a long cycle. For procuratorial organs, coordinating and solving major cross-regional ecological and environmental problems is a major problem in handling cases.

In view of the fact that the local procuratorial organs can’t solve the basin problems alone, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate chose to face the difficulties and file a case directly, which not only solved the problem of aquaculture pollution, but also led to the rise of ecological fisheries. This is the first public interest litigation case directly filed by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

After that, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate also directly filed a case for the ecological damage project in Nansihu Basin and the pollution control project of ships in the Yangtze River. The procuratorates of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt participated in the special case handling in groups, and conducted investigation visits to ports and docks in the Yangtze River Basin, effectively promoting the improvement of facilities for receiving, transshipment and disposal of pollutants from ships in the Yangtze River, improving the closed-loop supervision process for receiving, transshipment and disposal, optimizing charging items and prices, standardizing ship construction, repair and dismantling, and promoting multi-sectoral coordination and basin-wide linkage management.

On August 10th, 2023, the Procuratorate of Qinghai Province and the Procuratorate of Sanjiangyuan Region formed a public interest litigation patrol inspection team, and together with the prosecutor of Maqin County Procuratorate, they came to Animaqing District of the county to carry out the patrol inspection of ecological environment public interest litigation. (data picture)

At the same time, local procuratorial organs have also begun regional cooperation and linkage, giving full play to the advantages of integrated handling of cases by procuratorial organs in the basin. The Qinghai Provincial Procuratorate and the Xizang Autonomous Region Procuratorate signed the Opinions on Establishing a Cross-regional Procuratorial Cooperation Mechanism for the Judicial Protection of Ecological Public Welfare in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, actively promoting the high-level protection of the ecological environment and the high-quality economic and social development in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; Procuratorial organs in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shanxi have clearly defined the working objectives of cross-regional procuratorial cooperation and Daqing River basin management, established mechanisms such as clue transfer and collaborative investigation, and built a large collaborative pattern of water ecological environment protection in key river basins.

Actively perform their duties and investigate the liability for compensation for ecological environment damage according to law.

A good ecological environment is the fairest public product and the most inclusive people’s livelihood. Article 1232 of the Civil Code stipulates that if the infringer intentionally pollutes the environment and destroys the ecology in violation of the law, causing serious consequences, the infringed has the right to request corresponding punitive damages.

In handling cases, the procuratorial organs conscientiously implemented the Civil Code and the punitive compensation system for ecological environment damage, leading to the establishment of the concept of "malicious destruction of the environment should be severely punished". In June 2023, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a typical case of peak carbon dioxide emissions’s carbon neutrality in the service guarantee of procuratorial organs. The Procuratorate of Shuyang County, Jiangsu Province supervised and supported the eco-environmental department to carry out a civil public interest lawsuit against a new material company for eco-environmental damage compensation, and promoted the conclusion of an eco-environmental damage compensation agreement: the company paid 2.92 million yuan for eco-environmental restoration and invested no less than 2.91 million yuan to implement three alternative restoration projects.

The handling of such cases will guide the enterprises involved to adopt alternative repair methods, carry out energy-saving and carbon-reducing technological transformation in an orderly manner, realize the synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, promote the green transformation of enterprises in economic development and achieve greater development in the green transformation.

According to the characteristics of different types of cases, the procuratorial organs have adopted the methods of compensation for damages, proliferation and release, replanting and greening, restoration in different places, and labor compensation to urge the ecological restoration work to be done well. Naked carp, commonly known as Huangyu, has almost no scales all over its body. It is a unique aquatic animal in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is praised by local people as an "elf" in the water and one of the endangered species. In handling related cases, the procuratorial organs in Qinghai adopted the way of proliferation and release to restore the ecology, and explored and promoted the formation of a "low-cost, high-efficiency, diversified" public interest litigation claim mechanism.

The administrative prosecution "supports two companies with one hand", which bears an important responsibility in the service guarantee of ecological environment and resource protection. On June 11, 2023, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a number of typical cases of administrative procuratorial work around the theme of "administrative procuratorial assistance for ecological environment and resource protection". According to reports, in the process of handling these typical cases, the procuratorial organs focused on the problems in ecological environment management and resource protection, such as failing to fulfill the responsibility of mine restoration and management, illegal sewage discharge, illegal occupation and destruction of forest land, idle land and irregular management of land storage and storage, and supervised the fair administration of the court according to law, and promoted the administration of the administrative organs according to law.

Among them, the Henan procuratorate handled the case of a sewage treatment company’s administrative non-litigation execution of procuratorial supervision for excessive discharge of sewage, and the case-handling personnel played the role of "supporting two companies with one hand" in administrative procuratorial work. On the one hand, they supervised the administrative organs to make administrative punishment decisions according to law to prevent enterprises from falling into operational difficulties due to unreasonable fines; On the other hand, it urges sewage treatment enterprises to strictly perform relevant responsibilities, bear the legal consequences of excessive discharge according to law, and realize the organic unity of protecting the ecological environment, optimizing the business environment and ensuring people’s livelihood and interests.

Leverage big data to do a good job in ecological environmental protection procuratorial work

"I can only be’ Lao Lai’, and all the illegal income is used for the reclamation project around Dajieyu Wharf." When the procuratorate of Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone in Fujian Province handled a case of illegally occupying agricultural land and refusing to execute a judgment or ruling, a sentence from the party concerned caught the attention of the prosecutor.

Starting from this clue, the procuratorate combed out a number of clues about illegally occupying the coastline. However, in the face of the long coastline and the severe illegal situation, it is far from enough for prosecutors to find it manually. The Procuratorate of Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone explores the development of supervision model with the help of "big data+artificial intelligence technology", and uses satellite remote sensing geographic information data, government affairs data, etc. to discover the illegal acts of illegal occupation of coastline across regions and the clues of legal supervision problems of administrative organs’ illegal performance or inaction in batches, so as to enlarge and strengthen the "data pool" of legal supervision. Under the authorization of the Fujian Provincial Procuratorate, the Procuratorate of Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone initiated the establishment of an ecological procuratorial cooperation mechanism for Fujian procuratorial organs to protect the coastline, and established a big data application platform for marine public interest litigation centered on Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone and radiating other six coastal cities.

Using big data screening, comparison and collision, all kinds of information have intersection and series connection, and the problem clues can be clearly revealed. Digital prosecution has played an important role in handling more and more public interest litigation cases. In the Nansihu project handled by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the task force visited and sorted out 237 clues, and 84 important clues were highly confirmed by the clues quickly identified by the Aerospace Information Innovation Institute of China Academy of Sciences through satellite remote sensing technology.

Ying Yong, Party Secretary and Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, stressed that the digital procuratorial strategy should be implemented in depth, legal supervision in the new era should be empowered, fairness and justice should be promoted and maintained, and Chinese modernization should be better served by the modernization of procuratorial work. Consciously and effectively use modern scientific and technological means, mobilize the joint efforts of all parties with the power of the rule of law, and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The procuratorial organs implement the requirements of the CPC Central Committee with practical actions, and move forward towards the goal of beautiful environment, rich people and green development.

(Reporter Yan Jingjing)