Environmental protection law must respect people's rights

Chinese lawmakers passed the fourth draft of the Environmental Protection Law in Beijing on April 24. But the law is still far from meeting the requirements of China's environmental protection work. The people deserve more rights to sue polluters, says an article of the 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

Some analysts regard the new law as the harshest environmental protection law in Chinese history because it makes the punishment for polluters markedly heavier than before. The new law proposes to include the polluters' breach of the law into the social credit system.

The new law also gives qualified city-level social organizations the right to launch public interest suits against polluters.

But these new changes are not enough to solve the environmental issues in China, because the government still takes the initiative to decide if polluters should be punished and whether social organizations meet the qualifications set by the government to charge the polluters.

Most companies that discharge pollutions for a long time are those that pay a lot of taxes to local governments.

The past experience of the developed countries in environmental protection proves the law must grant individual citizens the rights to launch collective suits against not only the polluter, but also irresponsible environmental watchdogs.

To some extent, the current serious environmental pollution in China is caused by the local governments' connivance with polluters.

To force both the enterprises and government to take people's needs seriously, the law must give more rights to the people than the government.