Research On The Improvement Of Restorative Justice For Environmental Crime

Recently,environmental crime has become more and more serious with the development of China's economy.Environmental issues have significantly threatened people's health and the sustainable development of the country.However,according to the legal framework for environmental crime that are specified in the Criminal Law of China,fine and imprisonment punishments are mostly adopted in the traditional criminal justice system,which can only play a limited role in deterring and punishing the perpetrators of environmental crimes with limited ecological and social benefits.The restorative justice system focuses on the restoration of the damaged ecological environment and social relations,which is conducive to the unification of legal effects and social effects.In the applications of restorative justice on environmental crimes,more attention is paid to the repair of the consequences of environmental damage,and more emphasis is placed on the collaborative participation of offenders,communities and relevant institutions in judicial and enforcement procedures.It can not only effectively repair the ecological environment,but also better prevent environmental crimes and carry forward the value of environmental awareness.However,as a more diverse and more sophisticated legal system,restorative justice system has the following three problems: firstly,there is controversy about the intension and principle of restorative justice,especially on the topics that whether the restorative justice is a type of criminal justice,whether it could lead to the same crime different punishment or reducing punishment with money.Those issues restrict the development of the restorative justice.Secondly,the legal system,supporting system and supervision mechanism of restorative justice system need to be improved.Thirdly,the existing criminal justice punishment mode and the manner of criminal responsibility undertaking are not practical to ensure the smooth implementation of the enforcement effect.More investigations are required to improve the benefit of restorative justice.In order to realize the legal value of restorative justice system in environmental crimes,this paper aims to improve the restorative justice system for environmentalcrimes from the following three aspects.Firstly,improving the legislation.In the environmental criminal justice system,we suggest to define the scope of application of restorative justice system,establish its supporting system and improve the mechanism of supervision and restriction.The supervision and procuratorial functions of procuratorial organs need to be further strengthened in the restoration of the ecological environment.We suggest to ensure that the public has the right to participate in the restoration of the ecological environment.Secondly,improving the applicable model.To standardize the judicial procedure of restorative justice in punishing environmental crimes,this dissertation provides some suggestions for improvement in each stage of investigation,prosecution,trial and execution;The improvement of the mode of responsibility for applying restorative justice in environmental crimes are discussed in detail.