Recently, as part of the follow-up accountability of the Shanghang Zijin Mining Pollution Case in Fujian, the People’s Court of Wuping County, Fujian made a first-instance verdict on the former deputy director of the Shanghang Environmental Protection Bureau: the offence of corruption, bribery, misconduct of environmental supervision, and private sharing. The crime of state-owned assets sentenced former director of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau to 18 years imprisonment for 19 years and imposed a fine of RMB 10,000 and confiscated personal property of RMB 160,000 to recover the proceeds of crime; the crime of corruption, bribery, and environmental supervision The dereliction of duty sentenced former deputy director of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, Yong Yong, to nine years’ imprisonment, confiscated personal property for RMB 10,000, and recovered the proceeds of crime.
At this point, apart from civil compensation and administrative penalties, Shanghang Zijin Mining's pollution case has gradually become clear to the general public. The five former senior executives of the Zijinshan gold-copper mine and company under the Zijin Mining Group have all been sentenced for “significant environmental pollution accidentsâ€, and the former stationmaster of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of the Shanghang Environmental Protection Bureau as a national staff member Wu Shenglong, former deputy head of the East and the former, and Xuan An, the former director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County and deputy director Lan Yong, were each sentenced for dereliction of duty on environmental supervision.
4 environmental officials received guilty of environmental misconduct
On April 29 this year, the Intermediate People's Court of Longyan Municipality of Fujian Province made a final judgment adjudicating that the defendant, Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, was guilty of a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to a fine of RMB 30 million, which had been paid previously. The administrative fine of 9563130 will be deducted. The former vice president Chen Jiahong of the appellant Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, suspended for 3 years, and a fine of RMB 200,000; the appellant Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Environmental Protection Safety Office Director Huang Fucai committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, suspended for 5 years and fined RMB 200,000. The appellant, Lin Wenxian, former director of the Zijin Mining Copper Mine Wet Factory, committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment with a fine of RMB 300,000. The appellant Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Copper Wet Factory was formerly deputy factory. Chang Wangyong committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and a fine of RMB 300,000. The appellee Liu Shengyuan, former director of the environmental protection workshop of Zijin Mining Copper Mine Waste Factory, committed a major environmental pollution accident and sentenced him to a period of time. Imprisonment for 3 years and 6 months, and a fine of *** 300,000 yuan.
The People's Procuratorate of Fujian Province disclosed to the reporter of the "Legal Daily" that on January 28 this year, Bao Weidong, former stationmaster of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of the Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, was sentenced to a prison term for environmental supervision and was sentenced to prison terms by the Shanghang County People's Court. In two years and three months, the verdict has come into effect. Wu Shenglong, former deputy head of the Purple Mountain Environmental Supervision Station of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, was guilty of misconduct for environmental supervision and was sentenced by the Shanghang County Court to a fixed term of imprisonment of one year and nine months. The verdict has come into effect. In addition, the former deputy director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County, which has recently been sentenced, has four environmental officials who have been held criminally responsible for environmental misconduct.
The former director of the Shanghang County Safety Supervision Bureau, Chen Zhengping, was suspected of negligence or accepting bribes and was still in the review and prosecution stage at the Liancheng County People's Procuratorate. The reporter tried to understand the current trial stage of Chen Zhengping in the Longyan Intermediate People's Court, but as of the time of writing, no clear reply has been received.
Zijin Mining's daily supervision has long been in the form of
The content of the ruling of Yanan and Lan Yong who were accused of dereliction of environmental supervision by the Longyan City Intermediate People's Court told reporters in the “Legal Daily†that from January 2004 to July 2010, Yan An was appointed as the Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County. , The day-to-day environmental supervision and supervision of the provincial-controlled key polluting enterprises Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine has been subject to special rectification work. The work is seriously irresponsible and does not earnestly perform its duties, resulting in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine on July 3, 2010. The Copper Wet Process Plant (formerly known as the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Copper Sedimentation Plant) broke the HDPE impermeable membrane in the wastewater pool, causing the leakage of copper-containing acidic wastewater into the No. 6 observation well, and the No. 6 observation well passed through the artificial arbitrage. The channel connected to the flood culvert enters the flood culvert and overflows into the Tingjiang River through the retaining wall inside the cave. It leaks 9176 cubic meters of acidic waste water containing copper, causing pollution and downstream water pollution in the downstream of the copper wet plant of Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine in Tingjiang. In the major environmental pollution accidents involving the death of a large number of farmed fish, some water plants in Shanghang County, Fujian Province stopped supplying water for one day. On July 16, 2010, the No. 3 emergency transit wastewater pool used for emergency rescue accidents again caused a leakage of 500 cubic meters of acid waste water containing copper, which again caused pollution to the Tingjiang River water quality. According to the identification of the Marine Fisheries Judicial Identification Center of the Fujian Fisheries Research Institute, this major pollution accident caused the death of farmed fish, which was calculated based on the comprehensive price standard of 6 yuan per catty, and the total loss was 22,206,000 yuan. At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of fish cultured in cages, local government departments adopted measures to break through the net and put 3084.44 kilograms of fish on the ground.
According to the judgment, the dereliction of duty of the two defendants lies in the fact that the daily supervision work has long been in a formality, leaving the subordinates to do nothing: In accordance with the work rules and work rules of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, the defendant Lan Yong must be paid monthly. Once, the staff of the Purple Mountain Environmental Monitoring Station must carry out inspections and supervision of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine once a week to perform the corresponding on-site supervision duties to ensure the implementation of the “three simultaneous†environmental protection system. However, the defendant, Yan An, was neither arranged nor questioned. In 2010, the Defendant Yan An, as the direct leader responsible for the environmental supervision of Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, did not supervise the environmental protection of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, nor did he work for the deputy director-in-charge Lan Yong and Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station. Personnel performance duties are regulated...
In addition, unsupervised implementation of the special rectification documents was put in place: From September 25 to 26, 2009, the Fujian Provincial Department of Environmental Protection organized an unannounced inspection of the environmental safety of the Ting River valley and found that there are nine environmental and safety issues in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine. Hidden dangers and the formation of a special rectification document (Sui Huan-Hui [2009] No. 15 "Fujian Provincial Environmental Protection Department's letter on the environmental safety of the Ting River Basin mining area") was issued. After the Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau received the documents from the Provincial Environmental Protection Agency, the defendant Yan An forwarded this document to the deputy in charge of the deputy director Lan Yong and the Zijin Environmental Monitoring Station for processing, and did not require the relevant personnel to report back the situation and report back. There is no follow-up and supervision of the implementation of the document. The defendant Lan Yong was aware that the rectification document issued by the Provincial Environmental Protection Office required the Zijin Mining Group Company to timely conduct a thorough rectification and effective supervision of the connection between the culvert of the No. 6 observation well of the Tong Wet Factory and the stormwater discharge hole, and carry out effective supervision. The follow-up implementation and effective supervision of the rectification have not been completed as required, leaving significant hidden safety risks.
The judgment also held that the two defendants were negligent and did not work seriously and did not find that there were major defects in the company's rectification: On October 18, 2009, the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine reported the rectification measures and plans to the Provincial Environmental Protection Department, and then carried out rectification. During the reporting of the rectification measures submitted by the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine to the completion of the rectification, the defendants, Yan An and Lan Yong, did not arrange and organize the EPA staff to carry out the corrective action plans and the implementation of the rectification and the feasibility of the mine personnel. Analytical research and inspections did not arrange personnel of Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station to inspect and verify the completion of the remediation of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine. It was not found that the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine reported that a 2.5-meter high was built in the stormwater discharge tunnel. In the rectification measures of the retaining wall, it was significantly lower than the actual hole height of the rainwater discharge hole of 2.9 meters. The flood holes were not completely sealed and there was a large gap at the upper end, and the Zijinshan gold-copper mine was not actually found. The 2-meter-high retaining wall was built at the rainwater flood discharge tunnel, which could not meet the requirements of the provincial environmental protection department to “completely achieve the diversion of rain and sewageâ€.
In particular, on December 25, 2009, the defendants, Yan An and Lan Yong, reviewed and issued a report to the county government that the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine had been rectified (Hang Huan Lun [2009] No. 124 “About Implementation†of Longyan City). The Office of the People's Government reported on the seriousness of implementing the "Circular on the Environmental Safety of the Section of the Zijinshan Mining Area in the Tingjiang River Basin." It did not find that only three of the three rectification measures originally reported in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine were implemented. The “complete filling and plugging of rainwater drainage holes in the lower section of the extraction liquid pool†has not been rectified, thus leaving a major environmental safety hazard. After the incident, the defendant **an led the relevant staff of the County Environmental Protection Bureau to cooperate with the staff of the Purple Mountain Environmental Monitoring Station to produce false inspection records to cope with the inspection.
Criminal accountability has a certain warning effect on society
Concerning Zijin Mining’s senior executives and local officials responsible for environmental protection for being investigated for criminal responsibility in the Shanghang Zijin Mining pollution case, Yu Lingyun, a professor at the School of Law of Tsinghua University and a doctoral supervisor, pointed out in an interview with the “Legal Daily†reporter that one side The economic development is wrong at the expense of the environment. In modern society, the protection of the ecological environment has increasingly attracted the attention of the public and the government. The occurrence of environmental pollution accidents often reflects the degree of inaction of the administrative agencies, and those responsible for environmental protection should be punished.
"Constitutional environmental rights are active rights and require the state to actively intervene in the destruction of the ecological environment." Yu Lingyun said. He believes that as a result of the Zijin Mining pollution case, the executives of the company concerned and the officials of the environmental protection department are held criminally responsible, which has a certain warning effect in the society.
Wang Xin, a professor and doctoral tutor of the Peking University School of Law, told a reporter from Legal Daily that environmental misconduct is a special subject crime in the ninth chapter of the criminal law.
According to reports, the actual use rate of misconduct in environmental supervision is not high. As for the misconduct of environmental supervision, the majority of the actual use of administrative or party disciplines has risen to fewer crimes.
“Enterprises cause major environmental pollution, and how the national staff involved in misconduct of environmental supervision are connected to administrative sanctions and criminal processing, and related work is still under trial. The four responsible officials of the Shanghang Zijin Mining Pollution Case were treated by the court in an environment. The supervision of dereliction of duty for criminal punishment has conveyed a positive signal, reflecting the increasing emphasis on the protection of the ecological environment at all levels of the country and society,†said Wang Xin.
In addition, Wang Xin also told reporters that the amendment to the Criminal Law (VIII) that came into force on May 1 this year would make additional provisions on the charges, cancel the original “crimes of major environmental pollution accidents†and change it to “pollution of the environmentâ€. A number of amendments have been made to the “Pollution of Major Environmental Pollution Accidents†in Article 338 of the Criminal Law. For example, “serious consequences of major environmental pollution accidents that result in heavy losses in public and private property or personal injury or death†have been changed to “serious environmental pollutionâ€. "Change the "hazardous wastes" to "harmful substances", expand the scope of the pollutants and the space for the occurrence of criminal acts, and lower the threshold for contributing to environmental crimes.
"This is another good starting point for environmental protection at the legislative level," said Wang Xin.
Polluting companies are often associated with local governments
In Shanghang Zijin Mining Pollution Case, the court punished five senior corporate executives for "great environmental pollution accidents," and punished four government officials for "crimes of misconduct on environmental supervision" and the former director of the Shanghang County Safety Supervision Bureau. It will pay the price for negligence. In response, Professor Wang Canfa, a professor and doctoral supervisor at China University of Political Science and Law, points out: “Comparatively, the criminal accountability of the Shanghang Zijin Mining case is doing a better job. This series of treatments tells those The polluting enterprises and the staff of the relevant supervisory departments must take the lead in environmental protection."
Wang Canfa told the reporter that after the entry into force of the new criminal law in 1997 and before 2005, every year serious environmental pollution accidents occurred in more than forty cases or more, but they were investigated for the crimes of “significant environmental pollution accidents†and “due to misconduct of environmental supervisionâ€. There are few criminal responsibilities. Until the Supreme People’s Court’s “Interpretation of Certain Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Criminal Cases of Environmental Pollution,†which came into effect on July 28, 2006, there has been an increase in the number of persons sentenced to prison for environmental misconduct.
"It is estimated that the responsibility for accountability in this area will increase in the future." Wang Canfa said.
Wang Canfa emphasized that the reason why a polluting company can do things locally is often associated with the local government, not just the responsibility of the environmental supervision department. Officials who penalize the environmental supervision department have a certain effect, but it also depends on the polluters and the local government.
"The central government's development thinking has changed. Simply pursuing GDP is no longer adapted to the country's major policies. High-input, high-pollution, and low-yield 'two high and one low' development models must be changed. They must be guided by the scientific concept of development. Shift to the development of circular economy, the development of cleaner production, and the establishment of an ecological civilization. Only in this way can we fundamentally change the problem of environmental pollution and reduce such illegal behavior.†said Wang Canfa.
At this point, apart from civil compensation and administrative penalties, Shanghang Zijin Mining's pollution case has gradually become clear to the general public. The five former senior executives of the Zijinshan gold-copper mine and company under the Zijin Mining Group have all been sentenced for “significant environmental pollution accidentsâ€, and the former stationmaster of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of the Shanghang Environmental Protection Bureau as a national staff member Wu Shenglong, former deputy head of the East and the former, and Xuan An, the former director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County and deputy director Lan Yong, were each sentenced for dereliction of duty on environmental supervision.
4 environmental officials received guilty of environmental misconduct
On April 29 this year, the Intermediate People's Court of Longyan Municipality of Fujian Province made a final judgment adjudicating that the defendant, Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, was guilty of a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to a fine of RMB 30 million, which had been paid previously. The administrative fine of 9563130 will be deducted. The former vice president Chen Jiahong of the appellant Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, suspended for 3 years, and a fine of RMB 200,000; the appellant Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Environmental Protection Safety Office Director Huang Fucai committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, suspended for 5 years and fined RMB 200,000. The appellant, Lin Wenxian, former director of the Zijin Mining Copper Mine Wet Factory, committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment with a fine of RMB 300,000. The appellant Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Copper Wet Factory was formerly deputy factory. Chang Wangyong committed a major environmental pollution accident and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and a fine of RMB 300,000. The appellee Liu Shengyuan, former director of the environmental protection workshop of Zijin Mining Copper Mine Waste Factory, committed a major environmental pollution accident and sentenced him to a period of time. Imprisonment for 3 years and 6 months, and a fine of *** 300,000 yuan.
The People's Procuratorate of Fujian Province disclosed to the reporter of the "Legal Daily" that on January 28 this year, Bao Weidong, former stationmaster of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of the Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, was sentenced to a prison term for environmental supervision and was sentenced to prison terms by the Shanghang County People's Court. In two years and three months, the verdict has come into effect. Wu Shenglong, former deputy head of the Purple Mountain Environmental Supervision Station of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, was guilty of misconduct for environmental supervision and was sentenced by the Shanghang County Court to a fixed term of imprisonment of one year and nine months. The verdict has come into effect. In addition, the former deputy director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County, which has recently been sentenced, has four environmental officials who have been held criminally responsible for environmental misconduct.
The former director of the Shanghang County Safety Supervision Bureau, Chen Zhengping, was suspected of negligence or accepting bribes and was still in the review and prosecution stage at the Liancheng County People's Procuratorate. The reporter tried to understand the current trial stage of Chen Zhengping in the Longyan Intermediate People's Court, but as of the time of writing, no clear reply has been received.
Zijin Mining's daily supervision has long been in the form of
The content of the ruling of Yanan and Lan Yong who were accused of dereliction of environmental supervision by the Longyan City Intermediate People's Court told reporters in the “Legal Daily†that from January 2004 to July 2010, Yan An was appointed as the Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Shanghang County. , The day-to-day environmental supervision and supervision of the provincial-controlled key polluting enterprises Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine has been subject to special rectification work. The work is seriously irresponsible and does not earnestly perform its duties, resulting in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine on July 3, 2010. The Copper Wet Process Plant (formerly known as the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine Copper Sedimentation Plant) broke the HDPE impermeable membrane in the wastewater pool, causing the leakage of copper-containing acidic wastewater into the No. 6 observation well, and the No. 6 observation well passed through the artificial arbitrage. The channel connected to the flood culvert enters the flood culvert and overflows into the Tingjiang River through the retaining wall inside the cave. It leaks 9176 cubic meters of acidic waste water containing copper, causing pollution and downstream water pollution in the downstream of the copper wet plant of Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine in Tingjiang. In the major environmental pollution accidents involving the death of a large number of farmed fish, some water plants in Shanghang County, Fujian Province stopped supplying water for one day. On July 16, 2010, the No. 3 emergency transit wastewater pool used for emergency rescue accidents again caused a leakage of 500 cubic meters of acid waste water containing copper, which again caused pollution to the Tingjiang River water quality. According to the identification of the Marine Fisheries Judicial Identification Center of the Fujian Fisheries Research Institute, this major pollution accident caused the death of farmed fish, which was calculated based on the comprehensive price standard of 6 yuan per catty, and the total loss was 22,206,000 yuan. At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of fish cultured in cages, local government departments adopted measures to break through the net and put 3084.44 kilograms of fish on the ground.
According to the judgment, the dereliction of duty of the two defendants lies in the fact that the daily supervision work has long been in a formality, leaving the subordinates to do nothing: In accordance with the work rules and work rules of the Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station of Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau, the defendant Lan Yong must be paid monthly. Once, the staff of the Purple Mountain Environmental Monitoring Station must carry out inspections and supervision of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine once a week to perform the corresponding on-site supervision duties to ensure the implementation of the “three simultaneous†environmental protection system. However, the defendant, Yan An, was neither arranged nor questioned. In 2010, the Defendant Yan An, as the direct leader responsible for the environmental supervision of Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, did not supervise the environmental protection of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, nor did he work for the deputy director-in-charge Lan Yong and Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station. Personnel performance duties are regulated...
In addition, unsupervised implementation of the special rectification documents was put in place: From September 25 to 26, 2009, the Fujian Provincial Department of Environmental Protection organized an unannounced inspection of the environmental safety of the Ting River valley and found that there are nine environmental and safety issues in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine. Hidden dangers and the formation of a special rectification document (Sui Huan-Hui [2009] No. 15 "Fujian Provincial Environmental Protection Department's letter on the environmental safety of the Ting River Basin mining area") was issued. After the Shanghang County Environmental Protection Bureau received the documents from the Provincial Environmental Protection Agency, the defendant Yan An forwarded this document to the deputy in charge of the deputy director Lan Yong and the Zijin Environmental Monitoring Station for processing, and did not require the relevant personnel to report back the situation and report back. There is no follow-up and supervision of the implementation of the document. The defendant Lan Yong was aware that the rectification document issued by the Provincial Environmental Protection Office required the Zijin Mining Group Company to timely conduct a thorough rectification and effective supervision of the connection between the culvert of the No. 6 observation well of the Tong Wet Factory and the stormwater discharge hole, and carry out effective supervision. The follow-up implementation and effective supervision of the rectification have not been completed as required, leaving significant hidden safety risks.
The judgment also held that the two defendants were negligent and did not work seriously and did not find that there were major defects in the company's rectification: On October 18, 2009, the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine reported the rectification measures and plans to the Provincial Environmental Protection Department, and then carried out rectification. During the reporting of the rectification measures submitted by the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine to the completion of the rectification, the defendants, Yan An and Lan Yong, did not arrange and organize the EPA staff to carry out the corrective action plans and the implementation of the rectification and the feasibility of the mine personnel. Analytical research and inspections did not arrange personnel of Zijinshan Environmental Supervision Station to inspect and verify the completion of the remediation of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine. It was not found that the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine reported that a 2.5-meter high was built in the stormwater discharge tunnel. In the rectification measures of the retaining wall, it was significantly lower than the actual hole height of the rainwater discharge hole of 2.9 meters. The flood holes were not completely sealed and there was a large gap at the upper end, and the Zijinshan gold-copper mine was not actually found. The 2-meter-high retaining wall was built at the rainwater flood discharge tunnel, which could not meet the requirements of the provincial environmental protection department to “completely achieve the diversion of rain and sewageâ€.
In particular, on December 25, 2009, the defendants, Yan An and Lan Yong, reviewed and issued a report to the county government that the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine had been rectified (Hang Huan Lun [2009] No. 124 “About Implementation†of Longyan City). The Office of the People's Government reported on the seriousness of implementing the "Circular on the Environmental Safety of the Section of the Zijinshan Mining Area in the Tingjiang River Basin." It did not find that only three of the three rectification measures originally reported in the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine were implemented. The “complete filling and plugging of rainwater drainage holes in the lower section of the extraction liquid pool†has not been rectified, thus leaving a major environmental safety hazard. After the incident, the defendant **an led the relevant staff of the County Environmental Protection Bureau to cooperate with the staff of the Purple Mountain Environmental Monitoring Station to produce false inspection records to cope with the inspection.
Criminal accountability has a certain warning effect on society
Concerning Zijin Mining’s senior executives and local officials responsible for environmental protection for being investigated for criminal responsibility in the Shanghang Zijin Mining pollution case, Yu Lingyun, a professor at the School of Law of Tsinghua University and a doctoral supervisor, pointed out in an interview with the “Legal Daily†reporter that one side The economic development is wrong at the expense of the environment. In modern society, the protection of the ecological environment has increasingly attracted the attention of the public and the government. The occurrence of environmental pollution accidents often reflects the degree of inaction of the administrative agencies, and those responsible for environmental protection should be punished.
"Constitutional environmental rights are active rights and require the state to actively intervene in the destruction of the ecological environment." Yu Lingyun said. He believes that as a result of the Zijin Mining pollution case, the executives of the company concerned and the officials of the environmental protection department are held criminally responsible, which has a certain warning effect in the society.
Wang Xin, a professor and doctoral tutor of the Peking University School of Law, told a reporter from Legal Daily that environmental misconduct is a special subject crime in the ninth chapter of the criminal law.
According to reports, the actual use rate of misconduct in environmental supervision is not high. As for the misconduct of environmental supervision, the majority of the actual use of administrative or party disciplines has risen to fewer crimes.
“Enterprises cause major environmental pollution, and how the national staff involved in misconduct of environmental supervision are connected to administrative sanctions and criminal processing, and related work is still under trial. The four responsible officials of the Shanghang Zijin Mining Pollution Case were treated by the court in an environment. The supervision of dereliction of duty for criminal punishment has conveyed a positive signal, reflecting the increasing emphasis on the protection of the ecological environment at all levels of the country and society,†said Wang Xin.
In addition, Wang Xin also told reporters that the amendment to the Criminal Law (VIII) that came into force on May 1 this year would make additional provisions on the charges, cancel the original “crimes of major environmental pollution accidents†and change it to “pollution of the environmentâ€. A number of amendments have been made to the “Pollution of Major Environmental Pollution Accidents†in Article 338 of the Criminal Law. For example, “serious consequences of major environmental pollution accidents that result in heavy losses in public and private property or personal injury or death†have been changed to “serious environmental pollutionâ€. "Change the "hazardous wastes" to "harmful substances", expand the scope of the pollutants and the space for the occurrence of criminal acts, and lower the threshold for contributing to environmental crimes.
"This is another good starting point for environmental protection at the legislative level," said Wang Xin.
Polluting companies are often associated with local governments
In Shanghang Zijin Mining Pollution Case, the court punished five senior corporate executives for "great environmental pollution accidents," and punished four government officials for "crimes of misconduct on environmental supervision" and the former director of the Shanghang County Safety Supervision Bureau. It will pay the price for negligence. In response, Professor Wang Canfa, a professor and doctoral supervisor at China University of Political Science and Law, points out: “Comparatively, the criminal accountability of the Shanghang Zijin Mining case is doing a better job. This series of treatments tells those The polluting enterprises and the staff of the relevant supervisory departments must take the lead in environmental protection."
Wang Canfa told the reporter that after the entry into force of the new criminal law in 1997 and before 2005, every year serious environmental pollution accidents occurred in more than forty cases or more, but they were investigated for the crimes of “significant environmental pollution accidents†and “due to misconduct of environmental supervisionâ€. There are few criminal responsibilities. Until the Supreme People’s Court’s “Interpretation of Certain Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Criminal Cases of Environmental Pollution,†which came into effect on July 28, 2006, there has been an increase in the number of persons sentenced to prison for environmental misconduct.
"It is estimated that the responsibility for accountability in this area will increase in the future." Wang Canfa said.
Wang Canfa emphasized that the reason why a polluting company can do things locally is often associated with the local government, not just the responsibility of the environmental supervision department. Officials who penalize the environmental supervision department have a certain effect, but it also depends on the polluters and the local government.
"The central government's development thinking has changed. Simply pursuing GDP is no longer adapted to the country's major policies. High-input, high-pollution, and low-yield 'two high and one low' development models must be changed. They must be guided by the scientific concept of development. Shift to the development of circular economy, the development of cleaner production, and the establishment of an ecological civilization. Only in this way can we fundamentally change the problem of environmental pollution and reduce such illegal behavior.†said Wang Canfa.
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