Move aims to prevent local govts from influencing environment cases

China's top court supports hearing environmental and resources cases without regard to the administrative regions where such cases occur, aiming instead to let nature dictate the jurisdictions in a bid to prevent judicial intervention by local governments.

A guideline issued by the Supreme People's Court on Thursday on improving trials involving the environment and resources encourages grassroots courts to set up environmental tribunals based on the location of habitats.

"It means the upcoming tribunals will tackle cases that happen in similar ecological areas instead of administrative regions," said the top court's spokesman, Sun Jungong.

Ecological areas have no clear boundary, while an environmental dispute usually involves people living in diff erent areas, "so we have to change our current mentality to deal with related cases", Sun said.

Cross-regional tribunals can also be helpful in solving environmental disputes eff ectively, he added.

In June, the top court set up a special department to deal with cases relating to the environment and resources. The department is also responsible for guiding related trials at grassroots courts and providing a precedent for similar disputes.

The guideline asks high people's courts around the country to likewise establish an environmental and resource department, while intermediate and grassroots courts can build up similar benches based on the number of their environmental cases.

"For some grassroots areas, we're exploring the establishment of cross-regional environmental tribunals, which,I believe, not only will better protect the local ecology, but also get rid of governments'intervention," said Zheng Xuelin, the chief judge of the environmental and resource department in the top court.

Zheng confirmed that some grassroots courts have had pilot programs on setting up such tribunals based on similar ecological areas instead of based on administrative regions, for example in Guizhou province.

The province has been divided into four ecological areas and has arranged four courts to handle environmental disputes based on this division, he said, adding that the top court will help more provinces establish their own cross-regional environmental tribunals.

Lyu Keqin, deputy secretary-general of the All-China Environment Federation, echoed Zheng, saying that the top court's guideline and its establishment of the environment and resource department will contribute to hearing of cross-regional disputes by grassroots courts.

"It was common in the past to see a local government in the upper reaches of a river shuffle its own pollution responsibility to another government in the river's lower reaches, which wasted our federation's investment on ecological improvement," Lyu said.

"We took about hundreds of billions of yuan to boost the environment of the Huaihe River Basin, but failed. Governments along the river always protected their own interests and interfered with local courts'work," he said, adding that it is urgent to select a court to hear such cross-regional environmental disputes.

China's supreme court sets up environment cases division

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) has set up a tribunal for environment cases to better implement the revised environmental protection law, said a court spokesman here on Thursday.

The tribunal will hear civil cases involving pollution, exploitation of natural resources and conservation of natural environment such as forests and rivers, said Sun Jungong, SPC spokesman, at a press conference.

It will also hear appeal cases forwarded from lower courts, supervise the trial of environment cases at lower courts and draft judicial explanations about such cases, Sun said.

The SPC expects that the tribunal can set the standards for trials of environment cases, better protect people's environmental rights and help fight pollution and other offenses harming the environment, he said.

About 134 special environment tribunals have been established at local courts in 16 provincial divisions since the first was founded in southwest China's Guizhou Province in 2007.

Following suit of the SPC, all provincial high courts will also set up similar institutions while city courts and lower ones can decide based on their own conditions, said Zheng Xuelin, chief judge of the tribunal, also at the press conference.

According to Zheng, environment cases have taken a very small proportion of all court cases across the country, nearly 30,000 out of more than 11 million.

Zheng admitted that it is still difficult for people to file an environment case since courts are held back by technical problems such as lack of practical standards to assess damage, and in some cases interference from local governments.

With the operation of more environment tribunals, Zheng expects the number of these cases to increase.

China's top legislature revised the environmental protection law in April, imposing much harsher punishment on polluters and heavier liability on government.

The new law allows public litigation on environmental issues and expands the range of the plaintiff, from parties directly affected by environmental damage to officially registered social organizations that engage in public litigation on environmental issues for more than five years.

China has faced an increasing number of protests, or "mass incidents", over environmental issues. Cities have seen residents take to the streets against paraxylene projects, which they believe are a major threat to the environment and public health.

Courts are considered a more rational way for people to express their concerns without triggering chaos and violence.