On the 20th of November 2007, both the Guiyang Intermediate People’s Court and the Qingzhen People’s Court formed environmental protection tribunals.At that time Guiyang’s sources of drinking water were suffering from pollution, and the municipal Party committee proposed using a combination of administrative, economic and judicial methods to protect the city’s drinking water. The head of the environmental court in Qingzhen, Luo Guangqian, explains his point of view concerning the court. This year, they have had more than 50 so far. Those cases are: criminal, mostly to do with protection of resources (illegal logging, land use and mining); civil cases when citizens bringing cases against polluting companies; and cases brought in the public interest; administrative review cases, when a company appeals against a fine imposed by the government. The Court has composed by five judges, including a presiding judge and deputy. They organized training session; last time there were 80 judges and prosecutors from around the country. These sessions usually take the form of talks by guest lecturers (including an Italian professor talking about his research in the European Union and how judges overseas make environmental decisions). Some environmental courts suffer from a lack of cases, but it happens if courts only accept local cases. In this case, the jurisdiction covers quite a wide area, and they hear all the environmental protection cases for Guiyang’s 10 districts. And since April this year, they have more cases because the Guizhou court has also been designated as the court for cases arising in two other administrative areas. If it only accepts cases of infringement of rights and damages due to pollution, it won’t have so many. Furthermore, after a case of pollution there is a real need for prompt information, so they work with government bodies and the public, and this is also an important source of cases. The role of the Supreme Court’s new tribunal will mainly provide summarisation, research and guidance, strengthening the rule of law, and actual cases will still be handled by the local courts. For all these reasons, there’s a need for the judiciary to get involved in this work. The gLawcal Team EPSEI project (Source: China Dialogue)