The Institutional Design of the Integration of Civil and Criminal Remedy Mechanisms for Natural Resource Damage in China
With the accelerated development of industrialization and urbanization,the excessive exploitation and abuse of natural resources have caused serious environmental pollution and ecological damage.When encountering significant natural resource damage,civil and criminal liabilities may coexist.However,at the normative and practical levels,natural resource damage has fallen into the quagmire of"fragmented"remedy.The interplay between laws and policies in the normative dimension has led to the design of remedy procedures being"disorderly"and"stacked on top of each other",making it difficult to form joint efforts in institutions.The judicial field is characterized by the rigid thinking of"sticking to the old ways"which results in the neglect of one and the other,and the inability to coordinate civil and criminal responsibilities.This article systematically analyzes the current remedy mechanisms for natural resource damage,which essentially serve as a legal system for applying laws and safeguarding the public interests of the country and society.They belong to a partial structure of the social system in the field of environmental disputes.Therefore,it is urgent to apply an integrated approach and integrate the civil and criminal remedy mechanism for natural resource damage with the systems theory as the guidance,to ensure the legality and legitimacy at the theoretical level.Specifically,in judicial practice,the operation of the integrated remedy mechanism for natural resource damage can solve the problem of natural resource damage in one go,comprehensively coordinate the overall limit of civil and criminal liability,prevent attaching too much weight to responsibility from affecting individual justice,and prevent too little punishment from leading to the incomplete remedy of natural resources.This article believes that at the level of law path to facilitate the integration of civil and criminal remedy mechanisms for natural resource damage,the idea of"individual combat"should be abandoned.The integrated construction of civil and criminal remedy mechanisms should be led by"convenient,efficient,comprehensive and reasonable remedy of natural resource damage",and the final remedy plan should be quickly obtained by unifying subjects and integrating procedures.This article proposes three suggestions for the integration of civil and criminal remedies for natural resource damage.Firstly,the People's Procuratorate has been granted the right to sue for environmental public welfare remedy by the Civil Procedure Law and the Civil Code.However,in criminal litigation,it can only initiate public prosecution.Therefore,it is the most appropriate for it to serve as the remedy subject to uniformly safeguard natural resources.Secondly,due to the jurisdiction of the Intermediate People's Court over environmental civil public interest litigation cases in the first instance,it is ultimately determined that the Intermediate People's Court has unified jurisdiction over natural resource damage cases involving both civil and criminal fields.Finally,based on the different legislative purposes and value orientations of civil and criminal cases,it is necessary to distinguish the standards of civil and criminal proof,and the application of compensation and fines,and establish a comprehensive mechanism and integrated internal rules.
natural resource damagecriminal incidental environmental civil public interest litigationintegration of civil and criminal remedy mechanismsunified jurisdiction
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