The Research On The Crime On Major Environmental Pollution Accident

The crime on major environmental pollution accident is a new accusation in penal code after the modification in 1997, which has great significance to punish the behavior of polluting environment and protect environment. With the development of society, the problem of environmental pollution becomes more and more complex. At present, it seems to be in difficulty to solve the problem of environmental pollution just under Article 338 of criminal law, and it is not propitious for struggling against all the behaviors of polluting environment. Therefore, it is very necessary to discuss and study the crime on major environmental pollution accident. This article consists of three parts.The first chapter is the review of the crime on major environmental pollution accident. In this part, the author mainly makes a brief review on legislative background and legislative evolution of the crime on major environmental pollution accident, and then presents the concept and the characteristics of this crime. Because of the increasingly serious environmental pollution, the bad effect of environment administration, the increasing of the environmental protection consciousness as well as the government's attention to environmental problems, the background of environmental criminal legislation is promoted. The legislative evolution of the crime from emergency to gradual perfection reflects that it's a process for people to bjectively understand the crime, and then the author analyzes the characteristics of this crime, which are administrative attribute, complexity of accident reasons, persistence of harmful consequences and complexity of fact-finding, etc. The second chapter is about crime constitution of the crime on majorenvironmental pollution accident. The first question is whether a country can be the subject of crime; the second one is whether criminal object is simple or complex; the third one is whether the criminal pattern of subjective elements of crime can only be fault;. the fourth is whether the criminal pattern is consequential offense or whether the principle of cause and effect is suitable or not.;the last one is whether strict liability is suitable in this crime;The author expresses her own understanding and view of the crime constitution:it is not suitable for a country to be the subject of this crime, but in international law a country can be the subject of crime. In order to prevent environment pollution, government has made many laws and regulations, the purpose of which is to protect citizen's rights. So the object that this crime invades is complex object that is to say, this crime invades not only the national management system, but citizen's rights. The offence form of this crime mainly is fault, sometimes indirect intent. The criminal pattern of this crime should not be consequential offense, for it is unfavorable to protect environment. There are some difficulties to determine the case of environment pollution by using the traditional causality, so it is beneficial to prevent crime and protect environment by using the principle of cause and effect to solve the case of environment pollution. Because of the complexity of environmental accident's determination, strict liability can be adopted in proper circumstances.The third chapter is about legislative perfection of the crime on major environmental pollution accident. The author firstly points out the defects in legislation of the crime on major environmental pollution accident, such as, general accusation, lack of regulation to dangerous criminal, indefinite regulation of criminal pattern in legislation, lack of strict liability as well as unreasonable regulation of statutory sentence, etc. And then the author presents her own legislative suggestion to perfect this crime: making accusation detail, enhancing dangerous criminal, making clear subjective criminal pattern, introducing strict liability doctrine and perfecting penalty setting. By perfecting the legislation of this crime, the idea of preventing crime and the task of criminal law are reflected, and thus environment can be protected better.