Research On Legal Issues Of Reporting Environmental Offences

Article 57 of the Environmental Protection Law amended in 2014 establishes a system for reporting environmental violations.Compared with other violations,environmental violations have the characteristics of high thresholds for reporting,difficulty in reporting,and high risks for reporters.Therefore,we must fully consider the above-mentioned particularities and carry out targeted system design.We cannot simply use the reporting system for general illegal acts.However,by analyzing the current status of the legislation of the environmental reporting system in China,we can see that although the reporting of environmental violations in China has been provided for in various levels and various types of legislation.However,there are still problems such as incomplete legislative system,lack of targeted management of reporting information,incomplete internal and external transfer procedures,and inadequate protection of informants.The existence of these problems makes it impossible for existing legislation to match the needs of legislation for the particularity of environmental violations.In contrast,the United States,the United Kingdom,Japan,and China’s Taiwan region and other relevant foreign countries and regions have formed relatively mature legislative experience on the protection of whistleblower,which can be used as a reference for the improvement of the legislation on the reporting of environmental violations in China.Its specific experience mainly includes:the establishment of special legislation for the protection of whistle-blowers,the targeted management of information,the perfection of transfer procedures,and the legal safeguard measures in place.Based on the above,the following suggestions are made for improving the legislation for reporting environmental violations in China:First,special legislation for reporting environmental violations should be formulated to make up for the current system of incomplete protection of reporters in the field of environmental law in China;second,establishing environmental violations Hierarchical management system for reporting information.By clarifying the four types of major environmental violations,larger environmental violations,general environmental violations,and valueless violations,the classification verification and processing of classified reports of environmental violations,feedback and grading rewards will be realized;again,improve Procedure for reporting a case.On the basis of improving the internal transfer procedures of departments,the inter-departmental transfer procedures,especially those involving environmental crimes,should be improved.Finally,the legal protection for reporting environmental violations should be strengthened.Focusing on strengthening the protection of whistle-blowers,the whistle-blowers are protected by perfecting the relevant provisions of anonymous reporting and establishing a reporting method that combines real-name and anonymous whistle-blower,so that they can exercise their right to report without worries in order to obtain good reporting results Establish corresponding punishment measures for malicious or misreporting to regulate the reporting behavior of the reporter so that the intended intention of the report can be reflected,and at the same time,the accountability of those responsible for the poor handling of the report should be strictly investigated to fully protect the rights of the reporter.