Recently, the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate announced a criminal case of environmental pollution accompanied by civil public interest litigation.

In Fangshan District, Zhang and others illegally dumped over 440000 tons of construction and household waste, causing serious damage to land and vegetation.

The Fangshan District Procuratorate has filed a criminal incidental civil public interest lawsuit against Zhang and others in accordance with the law. In addition to sentencing Zhang to imprisonment and fines, the court also ruled that Zhang should bear more than 140 million yuan in ecological restoration costs, ecological environment service function losses, punitive damages, and appraisal fees. Other defendants should bear joint and several liability with Zhang within a range of 2% -15%.

The Fangshan District Procuratorate, relying on the integrated case handling model, has launched a synchronous review mechanism for cases related to environmental pollution, and has filed public interest litigation leads found in Zhang and five others suspected of environmental pollution crimes.

The Fangshan District Procuratorate intervened in advance to guide the public security organs to simultaneously carry out evidence collection work in criminal cases and public interest litigation cases during investigation, and to clarify the facts such as the conspiracy relationship, money transaction records, and land contract management between Huo and Zhang.

In order to further find out the violators and their respective garbage dumping quantities, the Fangshan District Procuratorate entrusted the Aerospace Information Innovation Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to delimit the electronic fence monitoring area according to the remote sensing monitoring technology and the garbage distribution range verified on the ground, obtain the information of garbage transport vehicles entering the electronic fence area, build a big data legal supervision model for illegal garbage dumping, screen 93 transport vehicles entering the scene of the case, and guide the public security organs to investigate and strengthen the key conviction evidence.

At the same time, the Fangshan District Procuratorate invited experts to discuss issues such as the scope of defendants in criminal incidental civil public interest litigation, the connection between civil compensation and administrative penalties, the determination of joint liability between illegal actors, and the application of penalty compensation, and added one illegal actor as a defendant in public interest litigation.

According to the announcement made in accordance with the law, the Fangshan District Procuratorate has filed a criminal and civil public interest lawsuit against Zhang and six others, demanding that they bear the responsibility of clearing garbage, compensating for ecological restoration costs, ecological environment service function losses, and punitive damages.

The People's Court of Fangshan District has made a first instance judgment supporting all the litigation requests of the Fangshan District Procuratorate Zhang and five others were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 1 year and 8 months to 6 years and 10 months for the crime of polluting the environment, and fined RMB 20000 to 70000;

Zhang was ordered to bear a total of 140119396 yuan for ecological restoration costs, loss of ecological environment service functions, punitive damages, and appraisal fees. Other defendants were jointly and severally liable with Zhang within a range of 2% -15%.

Zhang and others appealed against the decision, and the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court ruled to reject the appeal and uphold the original verdict. The judgment has come into effect.