opportunity-china.co.uk
December 2014 9
Problemswith Enforcing the Law
This goes to the essence of thewhole legal enforcement
and the effectiveness of the legal system. You need to have a
real consciousness about the rule of law. If all people take the
rule of law seriously, then they will implement the law properly,
nomatter whether it’s the government or the polluters. Take
Hong Kong as a comparison. If you ask the law enforcement
agency, their position is very clear: “we don’t have any views
ourselves but our role here is to enforce the law. Whatever the
law says thenwewill enforce it.” If there’s somethingwrong
about the law then you go to the legislature.
InHong Kong, the rule of law concept is taken very seriously
by the people. InChina, I think that’s still a serious problem
because the local government and other various vested interest
groups, once their interests are in concern, may simply ignore
the law or put pressure on the judiciary not to enforce the
lawproperly.
If youdon’t have enough law enforcement officers to
enforce the law then nomatter how good the law is it won’t
be able to be enforced. Law enforcement should come from
two angles, one is the pro-active approach taken by the
environmental protection agencies at various levels. Another is
to rely on the public, because nowadays the public’s awareness
of the importance of environmental problems has increased
significantly. If we use (the public) properly, it can compensate
to a certain extent the shortage of staff at environmental
protection agencies.
TheNeed for Political Will
If you look at incidents that have happened inGuangdong and other places,
youwill see that the public’s interest in participating in the environmental impact
assessment is high if their personal interests are affected. One issue there
with genuine public participation is the effectiveness of their participation and
what will happen if their views have not been taken seriously, whether there’s
a legal remedy for them tomove further; that is an issue in the current public
participation inChina. Amore fundamental issue here is actually related to the
political will of the government at various levels. It will only be effective if youhave
a total amount of control. In the American system they havewhat is called the
bubble. The bubble is fixed, so if youwant to increasemore, create or establish
a new polluting enterprise, it has to purchase from someone else.
They can’t increase the total amount. The total amount must be fixed and
gradually reduced; but that (relies on) the political will of the government.
Political Unwillingness
I think the root cause behind (the lack of political will) is the political careers
of the leaders. Take local government for example, or even central government.
The possibility is, if you have a very clear and strict rule, have a target there
saying ‘this is the total amount of water pollution’ for example; you cannot exceed
it. Anybody who exceeds this target wewill not approve of it. The consequence
is that the local GDPmay not increase asmuch as youwant and if you don’t get
that increase, maybe youwouldn’t get promoted.
That sort of considerationwill affect the political will.
Photography:Cui Chaoqun
