The Research On China’s Environmental Accountability

In recent years, the overall environmental quality of China is getting worse. One of the important reasons for this is that the government fulfill it’s environmental responsibilities illegally or improperly. Environmental accountability is the administrative accountability system in the field of environmental protection. Environmental accountability is a system of legal norms. When governments at all levels, environmental authorities and their civil servants fulfill their environmental responsibilities illegally or improperly, specific state organs will investigate their responsibilities in accordance with the limits of power and procedures and make them bear the adverse consequences.There are several problems in the legislation of environmental accountability in our country now. First, the legislative system is imperfect. Secondly, the legislative idea is unscientific, that is, emphasizing governmental power in environment and ignoring governmental obligations and responsibilities in environment. Thirdly, there are many problems in the mechanism of environmental accountability. For example:(a) In accountability subject:Administrative accountability is arbitrary and lacking impartiality. Legislative accountability lacks specialized organ. Judicial accountability is relatively passive. The scope of accepting cases is too narrow. Type of litigation is not enough.(b)The division of power and responsibility between accountability objects is not clear.(c)The scope of accountability is narrow and abstract.(d)The accountability procedures is not formulated. The accountability manner is not enough.(d)Accountability consequences are disordered and incomplete.The United States, Japan and other countries don’t formulate the environmental accountability in the law, but realize it by limiting the power of the government, regulating the administrative procedures of government, strengthening the administrative proceedings, and prompting the government to fulfill their environmental obligations actively. The legislative idea and practical experience in developed countries has shown that the effective means of implementing the governmental responsibility in environment is focusing on institutional constraints. Based on the experience of the abroad, combining the actual conditions of our country, we can perfect our environmental accountability at the following aspects. First, we can perfect the legislative system of China’s environmental accountability by formulating environmental accountability specificly in environmental basic law and environmental specialized laws. Secondly, renew the legislative idea of environmental accountability. Strengthen the legislation of governmental obligation in environment, combining governmental obligations and it’s responsibilities. Thirdly, we can perfect the mechanism of environmental accountability in accountability subject, accountability object, accountability procedures, accountability manners, accountability consequence.