An Empirical Study On The Judicial Application Of Environmental Pollution Crimes In China

Environmental pollution has become an important issue that restricts human development and the progress of the society.The evolution of the crime of polluting the environment has also gone through the initial stage,the developing stage and the mature stage.At present,a total of 12 legal documents on environmental pollution have been promulgated.At the same time of the development of legislation,the judicial evolution of the crime of polluting the environment has experienced a change from the crime of significant environmental pollution accident”to the crime of polluting the environmentthe judicial experience of judges in the practice of pollution has accumulated continuously.However,in the specific judicial application,there are still problems of large regional differences and different judgments in the same case.There are big differences between the theoretical and practice in the choice of legal protection,the form of responsibility,and the choice of criminal structure.By means of empirical research,this paper selects the time distribution,geographical distribution,court level and trial procedure,and the characteristics of the defendant(including gender,age,education level,nature,etc.)of 300 environmental crimes from 2012 to 2018.According to the analysis of the main factors such as the main methods of crime,the situation of joint crimes,and the form of responsibility,it is found that the crimes of environmental pollution in China still have major problems in specific judicial practice.For example,the conviction standards for environmental crimes are adopted.Whether it is natural law or human law,it emphasizes the result of the crime or the behavioral crime,and its form of responsibility should be deliberate,negligent or ambiguous.The courts in different regions have made great differences in the specific application,and There is no uniform standard,which has led to the question of the principle of criminal justice and justice.In addition,in the conviction and sentencing,the court has a small scope when applying the free penalty,and the penalty for serious pollution of the environment and the serious consequences is not obvious.The amount of fine penalty has no specific reference standard and is more casual.Violation of the state’s regulations makes the administrative organs in a leading position in environmental pollution cases,which compresses the space applicable to criminal law.In this regard,judicial practice should be based on the legislative intent,exclude the interference of some unreasonable doctrines in the theoretical circle,flexibly apply the law and judicial interpretation,and severely crack down on environmental crimes.Adhering to the anthropocentrism of ecology in the protection of legal interests,as the concept,because of the difference in legal protection,some cases in practice allow behaviors to be committed or result offenses,take deliberate forms of responsibility,clarify the standards applicable to punishment,and strictly enforce freedom.The application of punishment,probation and fine punishment will alleviate the shortcomings of administrative pre-position,and use the method of joint handling or decentralized appraisal to expand the source of crimes of judicial organs receiving environmental pollution,and further strengthen the publicity of environmental protection and improve the environmental protection of citizens.Giving full play to the initiative of judicial practice in the process of applying the law,and make the judicial organs on the last line of defense against environmental crime play its due role.