Research On The Judicial Application Of Environmental Pollution Crime

In February,2009, a chemical factory in Yancheng Jiangsu named Biao Xin was found to bring serious pollution to water by discharging industrial waste water which contained sylvite. This behavior, however, has resulted in serious consequences. It has caused 66 hours’water failure in downtown and direct economic losses of RMB 5.4 millions. In August,2009, the court held the responsible Hu Wenbiao’s behavior as delivery dangerous material crime and sentenced him to ten years in prison. This case was the first case that the court sentence the polluter to delivery dangerous material crime, therefore, it stirred up a huge controversy in society. So this paper will take the case as a point, and then mainly discuss the judicial application of the crime of environmental pollution in our country.First, I will analysis those four constitutive elements of crime of this case and combined with the legislation at that time (the time before the 8th Amendment of Criminal Law published), discuss the judgment of the case and put forward my own idea. In my opinion, it is better to convict the defendant of the significant environmental pollution accident crime than delivery dangerous material crime though it is also inappropriate to apply the significant environmental pollution accident crime. So after that, this paper analysis the existing problem of applying those two accusations.Second, this paper will focus on the 8th Amendment of Criminal Law, which amend the significant environmental pollution accident crime, and the difference between the significant environmental pollution accident crime and the environmental pollution crime, especially the change on the subject of crime and the objective aspect of crime.Third, this paper will focus on some problems related to the environmental pollution crime which amended by the 8th Amendment of Criminal Law and put forward some deficiencies of the judicial application of this crime. Just like the absence of potential damage laws;the confusion of intentional crime and negligence crime of this crime;inadequate system of property punishment insufficient in penalty settings and so on.At last, I will put forward some perfect suggestions about the environmental pollution crime according to the problems I raised before, it includes the addition of potential laws;distinguish intentional crime and negligence crime of environmental pollution law;increase penalties by using diversified way of penalties;pay attention to fine punishment and perfect property punishment.