On The Doctrine Of Liability Fixation In The Environmental Accountability

Environmental accountability is a regime within the system of party and government to make the negative evaluation on officials for their actios and results in the process of fulfilling responsibilities of environmental protection by the ways that reducing the officials' reputation, depriving or lowering the identity. The function of environmental accountability is to stimulate the officials to fulfill their duties actively in environmental protection to improve the quality of the environment. The design of a regime should meet the requirements of realizing the function of the regime.The doctrine of liability fixation is one component of environmental accountability regime, so it should be designed to maximize the incentive efficiency. Specifically, the choice of the doctrine of liability fixation in the environmental accountability regime should satisfy two conditions which are the participation constraint and the incentive compatibility constraint. The doctrine of liability fixation in the environmental accountability regime in existing texts of environmental accountability regime is chaotic, which is not only having no uniform standard, but also failing to satisfy the participation constraint and the incentive compatibility constraint. It can't make an effective incentive for officials to fulfill the environmental protection duties. Existing research achievements have paid less attention to this problem and failed to provide effective solutions. Therefore, it is necessary to reshape the theory of the doctrine of liability fixation in the environmental accountability.The doctrine of liability fixation in the environmental accountability is a system that composed of several principles. The liability for fault is still the origin of constructing the doctrine of liability fixation, but it should be adjusted according to different circumstances.The rescons of environmental accountability can be divided into two types,one is behavioral reason,the other is results reason, The corresponding accountability can be called behavioral accountability and results accountability, the doctrine of liability fixation should be matched to the two types of reasons.In the behavioral accountability, liability for illegality should be proper in the instance that the methods for officials to executive their duties has been specified by law,but a certain exemptions can be set strictly according to different circumstances.If officials have more discretion,special presumption of liability for fault will be appropriate but defenses for liability exemption are still necessary.In results accountability, in the instance that the results are made by the officials directly, the doctrine of liability fixation in corresponding behavioral accountability will be proper. In the instance that the results are nor made by the officials directly,which known as the case of leadership responsibilities, presumption of liability for fault will be appropriate and the exemptions can reference to the business judgment rule which is the exoneration rule for director in corporate law. In the case of political accountability, liability for result will be applied. In the environmental accountability, the resignation has dual properties,it's not only a moral liability,but also a institutional liability, it can be undertaken on officials' own Initiative or be implemented by the party and government organs. As a moral liability,there is no doctrine of liability fixation for resignation and all depend on officials' own discretion. As a institutional liability,it just a type of liability of environmental accountability, the choice of doctrine of liability fixation for resignation should depending on the specific circumstances.