Research On The Public Participation In Environmental Protection

The characteristic of the sociality and the extensiveness and complexity of environmental problem has decided that the publics participate made an important role in the field of environmental protection. The thought of public participation took place in the sixties of 20th century. The United States put forward the question of the public right to participate clearly in "the law of national environmental policy"in 1969. Thereafter, the environmental policy laws of a lot of countries and international legal files all stipulated the public participation as a principle in the law. This paper has discussed the characteristic and meaning that the public participates in as well as the public participates in legal principle basis and legislative practice from four aspects. The first part, has discussed mainly the characteristic and meaning of the public participates. The public usually means that has common interests foundation, with common interest or social masses and colony paying close attention to some questions. The public participation is the public involvement related to decision of the public interests affairs of the government, or put forward the activity of the suggestions. Because the denotative and connotative of the public participation are all very extensive, it must be realized and regulated from many kinds of aspects to the public participation. In the view of the sociology, the public participation means the public participates in the policy-making, in order to guarantee the policy according with the will of the people and policy legality. From the angle of nature, it is an important procedural right, and also an important principle of environmental protection and basic system. For the purpose, its main purpose lies in limiting the government right of judging freedom, promoting the scientific process, democratization of government's decision; for the judicial course, it is a mainly legal way of taking self-help within the orbit of legal system. The public participation includes three main key elements: Namely the subject of participation, the object of participation and the way of participation. The subject of participation is who has the right and can participate in. The subject of participation also is the public, or the common people of a country, or a society or an area, who can be a citizen, or can be those crowds without country citizenship too, but would not include the politician and government official. The object of participation is who associate with a kind of the public social affairs, who can express an opinion. In generally, the object of participation usually is the social public affairs closely related with the public interests, namely those public affairs correlated with the existence of the public life. And the way of participation is mainly as follows, evidentiary hearing, forum and consulting etc... The second part, has discussed the legal principle that the public participates, and the function of the public participate. The particularity of the environmental problems has determined the necessity of public participation in environmental protection, and so, emphasizing the public participation in the environmental protection field, confirming the public right to participate in, and setting up the public participate in system have his profound jurisprudence bases also. From the point of legal philosophy, the public participation is essential characteristic of the democratic politics and basic requirement. Democratic politics is freedom, and equal politics, and which have offered the chance of expressing and interchanging various political views. And the politics and laws that could reflect public fundamental interests and public will true. According to the law sociology, one of the important embodiments of social function of the law is the encouragement, and public participation could make the good social benefit by admitting public right to participate and encouraging various main bodies participate. From the theoretical aspect of state sovereignty, in sovereignty, the most important power is legislative power; one of democratic expression of the legislation is to realize program justice which just embody in citizen who have right to participate in legislative campaign equally through proper channel, and express benefit requirement, participate in decision process and influence legislate ends, and this is just also last purpose and the origin of right problem. From the process, the public participation is the basic channel, which the policy could be made up of thepublic opinion. Establishing the public participation system is the need to reinforce government service and policy establishment, especially in the field of the establishment in environmental policy. The role of the public participation has some aspects mainly, following as: firstly, the public participation may solve environmental conflict problem efficiently. Secondly, the public participation is a specific embodiment of environmental management democratically and openly, and which may limit the freedom of government freedom arbitration, and which is also a important condition to realize fairness, justice and openness. Thirdly, the public participation is the inevitable option of the sustainable development. The concept of the modern social sustainable development and the strategic goal need the positive support and the corrective understanding of the public, therefore the measure and the degree of public participation will decide the goal of the sustainable development and the level of the process. The aspect of third introduces some regulations of public participation in international and domestic legislation. From international legislation and the practice of countries legislation, the level of the public participates in the attention of right is more higher, and the legislative stipulation is extensive. Especially in the legislation of the Environmental Impact Evaluation Law, countries have stipulated the public participation basically in system, and also have known generally the special importance of field in public participation in environment. But in the field of the public participation, because the theoretical level is not enough and lack systematic theoretical demonstration, so the countries legislative level is different, which makes the function of the public participation in environmental protection not get biggest level. Especially in our country, because the legal concept of the public is very weak, the consciousness of the public participates is not strong, so we should need reinforce the public participation in theory and practice aspects and explore to promote mechanism actively. The aspect of fourth is exploring mainly the route of public participation in the environmental protection. First, the right of public...