Law

Customize a prosecutorial plan for river management, and strengthen the public interest litigation work in the field of water related issues in all aspects by the procuratorial organs

2024-09-19   

Located at the junction of Xinjin District in Chengdu City and Pengshan District in Meishan City, Sichuan Province, the world irrigation engineering heritage site Tongji Weir is a famous large-scale water diversion irrigation project in the middle reaches of the Minjiang River, with a history of more than 2000 years. Since 2008, problems such as aquaculture pollution, solid waste pollution, and agricultural non-point source pollution along the canal upstream of Tongji Weir have resulted in the water quality of the water section being classified as Class IV for a long time, sometimes as poor as Class V. The lack of cooperation and comprehensive performance among relevant administrative agencies has led to the above-mentioned problems not being resolved. On August 2, 2023, the People's Procuratorate of Sichuan Province filed a case and dispatched nearly 20 police officers from six investigation units at the provincial, municipal, and county (district) levels to form a special case team. With technical support from the water resources department, the team conducted 98 on-site investigations, coordinated the handling of the case, and effectively promoted the coordinated performance of multiple administrative agencies in two cities, four counties, and districts. They repaired more than 30 kilometers of damaged sewage pipelines, cleared and salvaged more than 1120 tons of floating debris on the canal surface, and effectively improved the water environment of the entire Tongji Weir basin. This case is one of the typical cases jointly released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources on the coordinated service of water administrative law enforcement and prosecutorial public interest litigation to ensure national water security. Chinese path to modernization is a kind of modernization in which man and nature coexist harmoniously. The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese path to modernization proposed to promote the construction of an integrated ecological environment governance system in important river basins. From January 2022 to May this year, procuratorial organs across the country handled a total of 48000 public interest litigation cases in the field of water related issues, including 42000 administrative public interest litigation cases and 6000 civil public interest litigation cases. Significant progress has been made in collaborating with water conservancy departments to promote water disaster prevention and control, water resource conservation, water ecological protection and restoration, and water environment governance. Adhering to the overall position of the "River Strategy" is crucial to the overall cause of the Party and the country. There are numerous ports along the Yangtze River, and ship pollution has become a persistent problem. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has directly filed a public interest lawsuit, and the procuratorial organs of 11 provinces and cities along the river have simultaneously handled 602 related cases, promoting multi departmental collaboration and whole basin linkage governance. The Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with multiple departments, will deploy a special campaign to rectify illegal sand mining in the Yangtze River. A batch of public interest litigation clues related to illegal sand mining will be handed over to the procuratorial organs in Anhui, Hubei, Hunan and other places to maintain the order of sand mining management in the river. The Yellow River is peaceful and the world is flat. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources jointly launched a special action to protect water resources in the Yellow River Basin, handling more than 670 public interest litigation cases and assisting in the efficient and intensive use of water resources. According to the relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, while adhering to the principle of "handling every case with high quality and efficiency", procuratorial organs in various regions are focusing on promoting the resolution of common problems behind individual and similar cases, and promoting the transformation of the governance model from post punishment to pre prevention. The People's Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing, used a big data legal supervision model to discover that 12 car sales companies in a certain car park illegally used municipal tap water to provide car washing services. The hospital is urging the district water bureau to handle the illegal water use behavior of the involved enterprises in accordance with the law, while promoting the centralized procurement of recycled water by enterprises, reducing operating costs, regulating the operation of the car washing industry, and achieving source control of water resource protection. The district water bureau promoted reform through cases and conducted law enforcement inspections on car washing water throughout the district, with a total of 31 car washing service enterprises being investigated and punished. The People's Procuratorate of Yifeng County, Jiangxi Province, urged the water conservancy and forestry departments to perform their duties in accordance with the law, and urged a mining company to correct its illegal behavior in soil and water conservation, investing more than 50 million yuan to build soil and water conservation projects and restore damaged ecological environments. In response to the issues reflected in the case, the court organized a special supervision of soil and water conservation in mining enterprises, urging 13 mining enterprises to pay more than 2 million yuan in soil and water conservation compensation fees; Formulate a special research report for local party committees and governments to refer to and make decisions, promote the issuance of normative documents, and promote the source control of soil erosion in mining areas. The governance of river, lake, and reservoir basins is difficult to achieve, and the difficulty lies in the fact that 'upstream and downstream are not synchronized, and left and right banks are not parallel'. It is necessary to break down the inherent framework and regional regulatory barriers, promote departmental linkage, regional coordination, and policy coordination The relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate stated that while deepening institutional innovation and activating social forces to participate, the procuratorial organs should strengthen technological empowerment, promote the deep integration of modern technology and procuratorial public interest litigation, build and improve an integrated technical support system for rapid detection, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellite remote sensing, etc., and develop and apply big data legal supervision models to give technological wings to the development of procuratorial public interest litigation. Adhering to the principle of quality and efficiency, the per capita water resources in Zhenhai District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province are only 320 cubic meters, which is less than 17% of the national average level, and is affected by factors such as the self-contained water system of the basin, low transit water volume, and dense population. It belongs to a water shortage area. From February 2022 to March 2024, 8 construction sites in Zhenhai District did not apply for water extraction permits in accordance with the law, and illegally pumped water from nearby rivers for construction and workers' domestic use. They did not pay water resource fees and exceeded the water quota management requirements, resulting in water resource waste. In response to the strong concealment and difficulty in verifying illegal water extraction on construction sites, the People's Procuratorate of Zhenhai District has constructed a big data legal supervision model to identify 52 ongoing construction projects with hidden dangers of illegal water extraction. While promoting the water resources department to investigate and punish illegal activities in accordance with the law, relevant departments have jointly carried out special investigations and rectification to effectively curb the chaos of illegal water extraction on construction sites near rivers in the jurisdiction. In recent years, the procuratorial organs, together with the water resources department, have jointly carried out special actions for river and lake safety protection, focusing on investigating and rectifying problems such as encroachment on rivers and lakes, obstruction of flood safety, damage to water engineering, illegal sand mining, illegal water extraction, and human caused soil erosion. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources jointly launched supervision and handling of major and complex cases such as the illegal construction of photovoltaic projects in Tiangang Lake, Sihong, Jiangsu, and the illegal construction of buildings in Xuetangzhou, Jingzhou, Hubei, to accelerate the rectification of the issues involved. Procuratorial organs in various regions carry out special activities to improve the quality of public interest litigation, leveraging the supervisory level, jurisdiction, and overall coordination advantages of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and provincial procuratorates, and concentrating efforts on handling influential cases with high quality and efficiency. ——Accurately grasp the collaborative positioning of administrative public interest litigation supervision, and help solve the "Nine Dragon Water Control" problem. The procuratorial organs of Yichang and Jingzhou cities in Hubei Province have urged multiple departments, including natural resources, water conservancy, and emergency response, to work together to remove more than 4300 acres of trees involved in the illegal planting of trees in the Juzhang River flood discharge area, which affects flood safety. ——Pay attention to the role of civil public interest litigation and pursue the ecological damage responsibility of illegal entities in accordance with the law. The People's Procuratorate of Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has filed a civil public interest lawsuit in accordance with the law to recover more than 4.3 million yuan in ecological damage compensation for the problem of excessive drainage of groundwater by four coal mining enterprises, resulting in a decrease in groundwater levels around the coal mines. ——Deepen the promotion of treatment through case studies, focusing not only on the end and treating already existing diseases, but also on the front and treating diseases before they occur. The People's Procuratorate of Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, combined the handling of drinking water safety protection cases and adopted the "prosecutorial suggestions+research reports" model to promote industry system governance. Adhere to the system concept of "defending the blue water" and promote "harmony between people and water". In their work, procuratorial organs at all levels adhere to a systematic concept, practice the concept of win-win and multi win, fully leverage the advantages of procedures such as consultation, procuratorial suggestions, and roundtable meetings, and promote the construction of a collaborative water management pattern. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources jointly held the first National Strategic Prosecution Forum on Service and Guarantee of the Yellow River, formulated 18 opinions on service and guarantee of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, jointly focusing on major protection and promoting major governance; Carry out grassroots activities of public interest litigation and prosecution for the protection of the Yellow River, increase efforts in handling cases related to water resources protection, soil erosion prevention and control, flood safety, and other areas, and cultivate a brand of public interest litigation and prosecution for the protection of the Yellow River. The Supreme People's Procuratorate is also exploring the establishment of a collaborative command center for public interest litigation in the Yellow River Basin, leading the coordination of provincial-level procuratorates, basin management agencies, and water administrative departments in the basin to carry out consultation and judgment, clue transfer, case cooperation, special rectification, information sharing, and other work. The procuratorates of 9 provinces (regions) in the Yellow River Basin, together with the Yellow River Water Resources Commission, have formulated cooperation implementation opinions to promote the normalization and standardization of cooperation. In actively expanding public participation, procuratorial organs in various regions promote mechanisms such as public interest litigation roundtables, public hearings, public announcements, and third-party evaluations to promote fairness through openness; Building the "Yixin Weigong" Volunteer Prosecution Cloud Platform, relying on public power to discover and solve public welfare damage problems in the water related field. The platform has registered more than 100000 volunteers and reported more than 17000 effective clues. In May 2022, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Water Resources jointly issued the "Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Cooperation Mechanism between Water Administration Law Enforcement and Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation", establishing the cooperation mechanism between water administration law enforcement and procuratorial public interest litigation. Over the past two years, the procuratorial organs of 31 provinces (regions, cities) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have jointly issued implementation plans or deepened the "river and lake chief+prosecutor general" work mechanism with the water resources department. Focusing on key areas of water related supervision such as water and drought disaster prevention, water resources management, river and lake governance and protection, water conservancy engineering construction management and protection, and soil and water conservation, the cooperation mechanism has been comprehensively established and continuously improved, including consultation and judgment, special actions, clue transfer, investigation and evidence collection, and case reporting. Jointly carrying out special law enforcement actions is one of the key cooperation matters of the cooperation mechanism. In June 2023, the Ministry of Water Resources, together with the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice and other departments, jointly launched a special law enforcement action for river and lake safety protection, focusing on prominent water related violations such as encroachment on rivers and lakes and obstruction of flood safety, and investigated and dealt with more than 12000 water related violations. The Ministry of Water Resources, in conjunction with the Supreme People's Procuratorate, launched a special action to protect water resources in the Yellow River Basin, investigating and punishing nearly a thousand illegal issues, and recovering nearly 100 million yuan in water resources fees (taxes). Through these special actions, a number of 'hard bones' and' long-standing difficulties' have been solved, and the two departments have jointly supervised and handled major illegal cases, promoting the resolution of major problems and effectively maintaining water order and stability The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Water Resources stated. (New Society)

Edit:Jia jia Responsible editor:Liling

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