On The Legal System Regarding Public Participation In Environmental Protection In China

With the aggravation of global environmental problems and ecological crisis, people can control various activities and devoted to environmental protection and development through participation in policy-making consciously and democratically, because of the deficiency of government governance. Under this background, public is becoming an impetus in environmental protection and a leading force of society since 1970s. Public participation in government administration had its own profound theoretical origins and era background, on the one hand, modern theory of democracy requires the operation of the administrative power accomplished through composite force of all parties, therefore, participation is the base of achieving democracy; on the other hand, the practice of worldwide reform of governing provides a chance for the public participation in government administration, and public participation solves or mitigates the conflict between continuous expansion of the modern government's decision-making power and the realistic and requirements of its benign operation in certain degree.This article puts forward that as system arrangement, public participating environment protection system should be carried out throughout the implementation of environmental law. Those systems such as environmental information knowing system, public participation system of environmental legislation, system of environmental administrative anticipation, system of environmental judicial anticipation and other procedure guaranteeing systems should be included in the"Ought to Be"logical composition of this system .Thus, the value target of this system is to accelerate the administrative democratization of state environment, to balance the interest expectation of public environment, to realize societal justice, to raising public environmental awareness and to cultivate the spirit of autonomous management. Furthermore, theory of public environmental property, theory of public environmental agent ,theory of citizen's environmental right and theory of environmental justice constitute the foundation of the jurisprudential theory of the legal system regarding environmental protection, while converting government function, awakening of public environmental awareness and wide emerging of environmental NGO laid a social foundation for the establishment of this system. Public anticipation in environmental protection plays an important role in the west developed countries such as United State of America ,Japan, Canada and France, their more advanced environmental management and legal system design provide a referential mode for us. Because of difference upon political system and basic condition of a country, the mode of environmental legislation and environmental protection should not be copied blindly .Whereas, the major experience of legislation and practice for the public participating in environmental protection are as follows: to affirm citizen's environmental right by legislation, to complete the approach, mode and mechanism of participating in decision-making mechanism of public participating in environmental protection, to perfect environmental information publicity system, to establish the legal status of environmental folk-groups in environmental protection , to guarantee citizen the right of the environmental lawsuits , and to safeguard their legitimate rights.Regulations of public participation in our country at present mainly lies in constitution , the fundamental law of environmental protection, special law of environmental protection, administrative law and regulation, policy-based document of environmental protection and related law norms. Although public participation in environmental protection has achieved some success in legislation and implementation, it had many faults. From the tendency of legislative values, public participation in environmental protection is lack of right basis, and the guidelines of legislation is lag behind; from the aspect of legislative technique, regulations of public participation in environmental protection are scattered and simply repeated instead of becoming a system; from the aspect of normative logic composition of legal system, the legal system of public participation in environmental protection is not sound and perfect; and from the aspect of public participation mode, public participation in environmental protection is under the lead of government on the way of public participation. Therefore, it is necessary to perfect the legal system.In order to construct and perfect the legal system of public participation in environmental protection, we need do as six following aspects: first, construct the legal system of public participation in environmental protection, create the origin right of public participation in environmental protection from constitution to environmental law system, and promulgate special law and regulation for environmental protection as soon as possible; Second, improve the environmental information knowing system in judicial practice; Third, perfect the legal system of public participation in environmental protection, endow public the administrative legislation initiative, clarify the mode of public participation of legislation, extend the participation range and improve the participation procedure; Fourth, perfect the environmental administrative decision-making and law enforcement, extend the range of public participation in environmental administrative decision-making, improve the procedure of public participation in environmental administrative decision-making, and strengthen public participation in law enforcement ;Fifth, construct the environmental public welfare lawsuit system, improve environment criminal procedure system; Finally, establish the legal system of environmental protection association participation in environmental protection, endow legal status to environmental protection association, clarify the relation between government and environmental protection association, cultivate mature environmental protection association and broaden the approach of environmental protection association participation in environmental protection.