The Research On Legal Issues Of "Daily Penalty" For Environmental Violations

The "daily penalty" system for environmental violations stipulated in Article 59 of the newly revised "Environmental Protection Law" in 2015 has changed the previous environmental penalty situation of "high law-abiding cost and low illegal cost".However,there are still some problems in the actual operation of the system,such as violating the principle of fairness and justice,as well as the principle of the fault corresponds to the punishment in administrative law.The reason why is that the determination of "refusing to correct" which is the precondition of the daily penalty,the regulations on the implementation procedure of the punishment and the design of the amount standard in the "Daily Continuous Punishment Regulation" are all too rigid,principled and constant,only considering whether the result of the illegal act is corrected or not,ignoring the correction of the behavior process.This article takes the case of administrative dispute between Jinhaiyuan Company and the Environmental Protection Bureau and the government in Zhaoqing as a typical case for detailed analysis.The focal points of the dispute in this case are mainly on three aspects: whether there is a "refusal to correct" situation of Jinhaiyuan company or not,whether the Environmental Protection Bureau’s implementation procedure of daily penalty and the setting of the amount standard of the penalty are legal and reasonable or not.Starting from the controversial focus of the case,according to the provisions of "Environmental Protection Law" and "Daily Continuous Punishment Regulation",through the analysis of the main legal issues in the case,such as the applicable conditions,implementation procedures and calculation methods of the amount standard of daily penalty,the article points out the deficiencies in legislation and law enforcement,and then puts forward suggestions for improvement from the perspective of legislation and law enforcement respectively.On one hand,which is to improve the legislative provisions by clarifying the criteria for determining the "refusal to correct" situation,refining the procedural provisions of "daily penalty" and improving the amount standard of the penalty;On the other hand,which is to improve the application of law enforcement by suggesting the ecological and environmental protection department to effectively regulate the application of discretion,to make sure that the law enforcement of environment is rational and fair as one aspect,and to comprehensively use various administrative measures to fully perform the environmental supervision duties.Through the improvement of legislation and law enforcement,the phenomenon of "one size fits all" law enforcement that regards daily penalty as a "omnipotent" punishment and "the only punishment" will be effectively improved,so as to pratically make it happen that administrative law enforcement can protect the legitimate rights and interests of administrative counterparts while preventing and controlling the environmental pollution.In order to ensure that the "daily penalty" system can play a better role in accordance with the relevant principles of administrative law.