According to the Chuncheng Evening News, the Yunnan Provincial Court has revised the method for sentencing environmental cases and it will sentence environment violators based on the damage they do and order them to plant trees in proportion to the harm they do to the environment.
YPC's Environment Protection Court is said to have passed a meeting summary which states that from now on the court will proceed on all environment cases in accordance with unified sentencing guidelines.
According to local media, the summary states that EPC shall be in charge of judging civil, criminal and administrative cases related to environmental protection, set up a joint mechanism with related departments, and focus on cracking down on companies and individuals who harm the environment. The summary says that to prevent abuses of environmental lawsuits, EPC won't accept lawsuits filed by individuals, however they can report environmental violations with relevant evidence to the concerned departments and file a lawsuit via them.
The summary also outlines that EPC will not charge any fees for proceeding with lawsuits filed by the procurate departments.
