The Application Of Restorative Justice In The Punishment Of Environmental Crimes

Restorative justice is a new type of criminal justice model different from traditional criminal justice.Its core is not to impose retaliatory penalties on past crimes,but to repair the damage caused by crimes,so as to avoid the risks that crimes may cause in the future.With the development of economy and the deepening of people ’s understanding of environmental interests,building ecological civilization and maintaining the harmonious relationship between mankind and nature have become the consensus of the whole society.In order to achieve the goal of ecological civilization construction,it is imperative to establish a systematic and socialized environmental governance system.Environmental criminal justice is an important part of the system.Under the new positioning,the goal of environmental criminal justice has changed from punishing criminal acts to maintaining normative order,to repairing the ecological environment destroyed by criminal acts to prevent environmental risks.Therefore,the application of restorative justice to the punishment of environmental crimes and the realization of environmental risk prevention and control with its repair function have gradually become the trend of environmental criminal justice.According to the current situation of environmental crime regulation and the objective need to prevent environmental risks,China has currently established an environmental restorative justice system dominated by judicial organs,with the participation of criminals and administrative organs,and by adding repair links in the stage of examination and prosecution or trial to achieve the goal of environmental restoration.According to the application mode,environmental restorative justice can be roughly divided into three types : plea bargaining,consultative governance and court adjudication.It is characterized by absorbing the participation of social forces,maintaining flexibility at the applicable time node,and making a comprehensive and rapid response to the damage caused by crime.Starting from the connotation and characteristics of environmental restorative justice,it can protect as many legal interests as possible when dealing with crime problems,and respond to the requirements of current environmental crime governance,so it is necessary to apply it.First of all,the development of the concept of criminal justice requires the judiciary to fully protect the rights of all parties in the case of increasingly complex crime problems,absorb the participation of social forces and achieve substantive justice.Secondly,the traditional judicial model cannot fully realize the protection of environmental interests and cannot meet the growing needs of the society for a better living environment.Finally,the application of restorative justice fits the characteristics of environmental crime and responds to the requirements of environmental governance under the new ecological ethics.Under the new social background,it is an inevitable requirement for environmental criminal justice to protect the public interests in a wider range and achieve more comprehensive social justice in the process of punishing environmental crimes.Restorative justice provides an appropriate solution.Therefore,it is necessary to apply restorative justice to the punishment of environmental crimes.At present,there are still many problems in the application of environmental restorative justice in China.These problems mainly focus on the following aspects :First of all,the conflict between environmental restoration measures and the current legislative style affects the certainty of the application of law.The law requires the offender to repair the damaged ecological environment,but the nature of the offender ’s ecological restoration responsibility in judicial practice is not clear.The unclear positioning of this responsibility makes the application of environmental remediation measures seem chaotic,and it is difficult to play the guiding role of the law on people ’s behavior.Secondly,the lack of consultation and communication mechanism makes environmental restorative justice fail to gather the scattered opinions of relevant parties in the process of crime punishment into a consensus,which makes the goals of repairing the damage to victims and communities,helping offenders return to society,and establishing social consensus on environmental protection not fully realized.Finally,the design of a priori environmental restorative justice system does not fully consider the impact of realistic factors on the results of environmental restoration,so that the socially expected environmental restoration goals are not fully realized.The law clarifies the requirements for repairing the damaged ecological environment,and the society also expects that the final result of the application of law is the restoration of the function of the ecological environment.However,due to the lack of supervision mechanism,the implementation of environmental restoration measures is difficult to judge,and it is also difficult to monitor the actual factors affecting environmental restoration,which makes the effect of environmental restoration vary widely.In view of the problems in judicial practice,first of all,in terms of substantive responsibility,in order not to make the use of remediation measures too casual and maintain the guiding role of the law on people ’s behavior,a special ecological restoration law should be formulated to unify the scattered and effective environmental restoration liability provisions;new penalty measures should also be stipulated in the criminal law.Secondly,in terms of procedures,in order to comprehensively assess the damage to society after the occurrence of environmental crimes,and to respond promptly to the damage and the risks that spread,a consultative restorative justice process should be established;at the same time,expand the space for judicial organs to play the role of legal supervision.Finally,in terms of safeguard measures,in order to meet the needs of the public for a good living environment and achieve effective governance of the ecological environment,a reasonable ecological restoration supervision and evaluation mechanism should be established to give full play to the supervisory role of administrative departments,environmental public welfare organizations and citizens.Through the improvement of the above three aspects,environmental restorative justice can coordinate and unify the three goals of repairing the ecological environment,repairing social relations and maintaining the guiding role of law,realize the improvement of social well-being in a broad sense,and promote the relationship between mankind and nature in a good direction.This is also the requirement of substantive justice : by correcting the factors of injustice to move closer to the goal of justice,and ultimately achieve human goodness,beauty and happiness.