Study Of Public Participation In Implementation Of Environmental Protection Laws In China

Originated in the United States from 1960s to 1970s, Public Participation in Environmental Protection has been introduced in China since early 1990s. Recently, environmental protection is becoming more and more important to the States. As an extensive and widespread environmental protection activity, environmental legislation enforcement has been paid more attention throughout the whole State. Environmental legislation enforcement is one of the most important contents of environmental protection, and it is the basic guarantee to ensure all the environmental protection legislations and regulations could be implemented in proper channels. Especially in developing countries such as China, enforcement of environmental Legislation is still needed to achieve the environmental protection. In conclusion, to establish a mechanism of public participation in environmental legislation enforcement will prefect the whole Chinese environmental legislation system.However, there are still some difficulties to execute enforce environmental legislation now. The main difficulties are: First, local protectionism, the phenomenon of"Disobey the law, enforce Undemanding Law, Ignore the lawbreaking" has not been solved; Second, there is the lack of real-time environment law enforcement measures, and the effectiveness of law enforcement is very limited; Third, the inefficient punishment causes that the lawbreaking cost is lower than law-abiding cost, it makes lawbreakers to be profit driven and take risk to discharge the waste to reduce the operating costs. Therefore, to launch public participation in environmental law enforcement is a powerful tool to improve the performance environmental law enforcement.The public participation in environmental law enforcement will help us to promote openness in government affairs, to break down local protectionism, and to establish a good foundation of environment law enforcement. The public participation will also be benefit to reaching fairness, impartiality, comprehensiveness and timeliness in environmental law enforcement; it will be helpful to improve the procedures of environmental law enforcement, to supervise the enforcement, to protect the public environment; and also it will be helpful to reduce the enforcement cost, to improve the effect of enforcement and establish a good image of law enforcement office. As a result, public participation in environmental law enforcement is essential and obligatory now.Currently, public participation in environmental law enforcement is not in good status, it is still in low level of public participation in environmental law enforcement. The main problems are concentrated in the following four aspects:1, The public environmental awareness is not good enough. Most public are involved in enforcement passively. The effect of participation is not satisfied. Although China is continuing to strengthen its education and public notification, which has improved the public awareness of environmental protection, but as view of whole China, the awareness of public participation in environmental protection is still low and lack of environmental law enforcement sense, not in-depth public mind, it has a direct impact on public participation in environmental law enforcement.2, The relevant provisions in environmental legislation on public participation are not enough, which bring the difficulty for public to participate the environmental law enforcement. Although China has already set up some relevant provisions on public participation in environmental legislation, but this is far from enough. There is still some difficulty to promote public participation in environmental law enforcement, mainly in the lack of systematic, feasible, incentive, security, and so on.3, The communication channels between environmental law enforcement office and the public are not open enough, as well as lack of open information, which causes public participation in environmental law enforcement is difficult to implement. First of all, the model of open China administrative affairs is still initiated by the government, which causes the uncertainty of the time and content to open, and the public is placed in a weak position, it is difficult for public to execute the relevant rights in environmental law enforcement; and, the disclosed information of the contents is limited, only focus on public information, without any enterprise information disclosure rules, the information quality is not good enough for public, there are still many defects and incomplete that cause the inefficient in public participation in environmental law enforcement.4, From the organization point of view, the influence to community organizations, in particular non-governmental environmental protection organization is very limited. Restricted by the amount, scale and capital of non-governmental organizations, the role they played in environmental protection will be very limited, this is mainly reflected in the low degree of public recognition for public participation, the lack of influence to government on environmental management and decision-making, as well as the less power to enterprises which are the main impact to environment.In view of the public participation in environmental law enforcement, as well as the status of the existence of many problems, I believe that following areas should be continued to improve the mechanism of public participation in environmental law enforcement.1, Build up public participation in the legal system to improve public participation and environmental law enforcement mechanism. The perfect the legal system is is an important guarantee of public participation in environmental law enforcement, "strict enforcemend" can not be achieved only after "law is available". First of all, there should be clear regulation on public Participation in the basic law of China's environmental protection - the "Environmental Protection Law" and the other related environmental protection laws (such as "Air Pollution Prevention Law" and "Water Pollution Prevention Law," "Noise Control Act") , regarding the environmental law enforcement of the rights, duties in the content, scope, procedures, ways and at the same time, to develop of a special regulations for public participation so as to provide a legal basis for implementation of public participation. Second, the public interest litigation on environment should be established to promote the realization of the rights and interests of the public environment. It includes: the appropriate relax of the eligibility of the plaintiff defendant, a clear scope of public interest litigation environment, the provisions of subject content of public interest litigation environment and so on, Inorder to guide the public to use the right and legal means to fight against pollution and damage to the environment to ensure that environmental enforcement actions are under Community supervision.2, To establish an open information system on environment law enforcement, and improve public participation system. On the one hand, through the establishment of a platform for information dissemination, information-gathering feedback platform for the establishment of a sound environmental law enforcement system for public information, etc., we enhance law enforcement environment, "transparency" to protect the public's right to know. On the other hand, to improve the participation system, including plan participation, the process participation and result participation so that the whole process of environmental problems ,solutions could be understood and under supervision of the public.4, To encourage non-governmental environmental protection organizations to develop and grow, and to implement public administration of the environmental violations. First of all, legal recognition should be given to non-governmental environmental protection organizations. The legal status of their participation in environmental law enforcement should be confirmed; Second, communication between government and non-governmental environmental protection organizations should be strengthened, the most active non-governmental health Environmental groups should get support and guide; again, environmental organizations should strengthen self-construction and actively participate in the development of national legislation and give scientific and reasonable suggestions to national legislation.3, To establish accountability and incentives mechanisms of public participation. To promote the healthy development public participation. The obviously wrong, slack work, as well as abuse of authority should be imposed in accordance with the accountability system, and government agencies and their staff shall be take responsibility to their legal obligations. At the same time, active public participation should be encouraged. The spirit and material incentives should be given in order to encourage the public to foster civic awareness, to promote active public participation in environmental management things.5, To strengthen supervision by public opinion and raise law awareness, so as to create a good external environment for law enforcement. Public opinion is the only way to enhance and improve the level of environmental management. At the same time that a multi-level, multi-platform network are established. The supervisory role of the media to form a huge pressure of public opinion should be bring into full play, so that various types of environmental issues can be dealt with in a timely manner and public opinion will be to-earth manner. Meantime, to strengthen the public awareness of public participation, increase the dissemination of knowledge, organize environmental protection related practical activities to increase public awareness as a subject, pro-active participation in environmental decision-making, environmental law enforcement activities, in order to lay a good basis for the environment law enforcement.To sum up, with the continuous improvement of China's democracy and legislation, public awareness of environmental protection is growing, public will pay more attention to the affairs that will influence their own rights and interest and will exercise of the right to participate. While environmental law enforcement and public affairs as part of a more public participation which can not be separated, the extensive public participation in environmental law enforcement has become a necessity. Through public participation in environmental law enforcement and the positive interaction will improve China's environmental protection and the level of democracy and legislation and finally consciously abide by the law society as a whole, and consciously protect the ecological environment.I hope that the proposed public participation policies could be to a certain extent, which adjust our public participation in environmental law enforcement mechanisms, so that a better environment for democratic principles embodied in the environment from beginning to end in the practice of law for reference to further improvement of China's environment law enforcement.