A Study On The Application Of Strict Liability In Environmental Criminal Of China

With the acceleration of the industrialization process, today there occur many newhazards to public safety and environmental crime. In these new crimes, the mostrepresentative one is the environmental crime, which features long incubation period,more dangers and many other characteristics. Besides, it is very difficult on the presenceof the perpetrator subjective fault of proof, and therefore cannot be ruled through thetraditional type of crime law sanctions. To address this issue, the British first created anew system-"strict liability" system. This system allows the prosecution of seriousharm to public safety and environmental crimes. The behavior of the defendant does nothave to be proved through the existence of subjective fault, just to be proved there beinga causal link between the defendant’s conduct and the harm caused by the acts, thus thebehavior defendant to the conviction and sentencing.The aim of the paper is to study the questions on whether the strict stability issuitable to environmental crime in our country and how to apply it on the basis ofcriminal law of our country and national conditions. This paper attempts to explorethe history of the strict liability and to define the meaning of strict liability in criminallaw with foreign applicable conditions of strict liability, as well as to clarify theconcept and scope of strict liability. At same time, this article tries to give advice andassumptions on how to severely punish environment crime in our country.As the study shows, in terms of environment crime treatment, the introduction ofthe strict liability not only conforms to the general provisions of china’s criminal lawbut also can improve increasingly severe environment problems of our country. Atthe present stage, there is no direct conflict between criminal law of our country andstrict liability. But the former has the obvious shortcomings in the treatment of theenvironmental crime. Therefore, the introduction of strict stability can rapidly improvethe adverse situation in treatment of environment crime in china. At the same time, theforeign reference also shows that the strict liability has the advantage which is unable tobe substituted by traditional law and can largely curb the deterioration of theenvironmental crime.However, because of the particularity of national and law conditions in our country,we can not introduce the strict liability without change and has to construct china’s ownstrict liability on environment crime in accordance with the country’s condition andlegislation of criminal crime. Therefore, In the introduction of strict liability, the legal status and the scope of strict liability must be clarified. Besides, the absolute strictliability has the strong responsibility binding, which would infringe the legitimateinterest, therefore we should introduce the relative one. As for the aspect of specificsystem, we need to clearly define the scope and object of strict liability and severelyimplement strict liability in certain environmental crimes. In sentencing, the principle oflight punishment should be followed and fines and short term sentence should be givenpriority, besides, severe punishment should be carefully used. At the same time, Inorder to protect the defendant the judicial procedure, the counter plea of strict liabilitycases should be introduced.