Punitive system put in force to better protect environment

People who intentionally damage the environment, causing serious consequences, are set to face much harsher punishment, the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China said on Jan.14th. The move to introduce punitive damage compensations in such cases is in line with the new Judicial Interpretation issued by the Supreme People's Court of China. The 14-article legal document on applying a punitive damage compensation system in ecological and environmental cases, which takes effect on Jan 20, is its latest measure to fight pollution, promote sustainable development, and beautify the country.

Yang Linping, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China, said that the Interpretation is to firmly uphold Xi Jinping's thought on Ecological Civilization and to effectively implement the related provisions of the Civil Code. Punitive damage compensation is considered as a harsher punishment and will typically be awarded at a court's discretion when the defendants' behavior is found to be especially harmful, she said. The punitive damage compensation system has already been applied across the nation in the fields of intellectual property protection and food safety. "We introduce the punitive damage compensation system to this new area, because we hope to present higher pressures to polluters by ordering them to pay a higher penalty for their violations," Yang added. "The more polluters pay, the more effectively we will prevent similar incidents."

Feng Fan, a lawyer from Jiangxi Province and a deputy to the National People's Congress, said that the punitive damage compensation system is an innovation in environmental protection that will increase the costs for breaking related laws. Qin Tianbao, director of the Research Institute of Environmental Law at Wuhan University's Law School, said that the move of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China, which specifies how to apply the system when handling environmental cases, is a groundbreaking move worldwide,  providing the world with a Chinese solution in global environmental governance. While agreeing on the need to punish polluters more severely, the two experts also welcomed the stipulations in the document requiring judges to adopt a prudent approach when awarding punitive damage compensations, in order to prevent abuses of the system.

For example, the Interpretation stipulates that the amount of punitive damage compensations should be calculated based on the extent of personal harm or property losses caused by the pollution or environmental damage. It adds that such punitive damage compensations should generally be no more than twice the amount of those that would have previously been awarded. It also specifies the situations in which polluters' behavior can be identified as "intentional damage to the environment", in order to ensure the system is implemented more effectively. One such situation will be when individuals or enterprises refuse to correct irregularities and continue discharging pollutants after being warned by government agencies. Moreover, it states that polluters whose actions result in deaths, damage to people's health, or property losses will be identified as "serious consequences".

Edited by Wang Miao with reference to <https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YdqszE01RLmeOilluKNhkQ> （Wechat account of CCPR）