The Regulations onthe Prevention and Control of Dust Pollution in Jingzhou Municipality,which is the first law about dust pollution prevention in our province, beganto be implemented on October 1.
Since the local legislative power began to be exercisedin January 2016, the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of JingzhouMunicipality has made rapid progress, formulating four substantive laws in thepast four years. The Regulations on theProtection of the Ancient City of Jingzhou came into force on May 1, 2017; The Regulations on the Promotion of Civilized Behaviorsin Jingzhou Municipality took effect on January 1, 2018; The Regulations on the Protection of the LongLake of Jingzhou Municipality began to be officially implemented on April1, 2019.
At present, The Regulationson the Protection of Revolutionary Relics in the Western Hunan and WesternHubei Revolutionary Base Area (Draft), which was proposed by the Jingzhou MunicipalGovernment and submitted for preliminary reviewed by the Standing Committee ofthe People's Congress of Jingzhou Municipality, is being revised based onsurveys, and will be submitted for second review at the end of October.
“Some progress has been made in Jingzhou’s legislationand fully affirmed by the National People's Congress and the ProvincialPeople’s Congress.” According to Zhang Qin ,the deputy director of the People’sCongress of Jingzhou Municipality, local legislation is exploratory process andmust focus on what is required for the overall situation and the people andwhat problems exist. It should be detailed, accurate and enforceable in orderto provide strong and effective legal guarantees for local socio-economicdevelopment.
More efforts are being made toevacuate the ancient city
Why does the first substantive law of Jingzhou focus on“the protection of the ancient city”?
On October 8, Yang Jun, deputy director of the Legal WorkCommittee of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of JingzhouMunicipality, said that City Wall of Jingzhou is a national key cultural relicunder protection and is known as “a complete wall rarely seen in southernChina”; the 4.5-square-kilometer ancient city of Jingzhou, with a dense populationof 107,000, suffered from severe traffic congestion and outdatedinfrastructure. “The ancient city is an important attraction for Jingzhou’stourism, but it has not been cared for for a long time. Some people joke that ‘theyare begging for food with a gold bowl’. Legislation must be made to providelegal guarantees for the protection and utilization of the ancient city”.
The scope, height limit and population of the ancientcity are the three most discussed and debated issues in the legislativeprocess. Yang Jun said that they had consulted experts and professors from WuhanUniversity about this, which reflects the value orientation of scientificlegislation. According to The Regulationson the Protection of the Ancient City of Jingzhou, the scope of the ancientcity is determined by the planning of protection for the historic and culturalcity of Jingzhou; the cornices of buildings inside and outside the city wallshould be 6 to 24 meters in height, and those buildings beyond the range willbe gradually demolished; the number of residents within the ancient city walls willbe limited to 60,000. Where did they get the number of “60,000”? Yang Jun mentioneda small detail: They learned about the other provinces’ legislation and lawenforcement for the protection of ancient cities and found that some otherancient cities are not much smaller than the ancient city of Jingzhou but thenumber of residents is just a little more than 30,000 within the ancient citywalls. “It is difficult to develop tourism if there are not many people and thecity is in darkness at night. So people should not be excessively evacuated. Wemust keep community hospitals, schools and other supporting facilities.”
According to Yang Jun, The Regulations on the Protection of the Ancient City of Jingzhou hasbeen implemented for more than two years, and specific measures are being taken,such as scientific planning, wall restoration, moat dredging, functionalconstruction and resident evacuation. “The relocation of Jingzhou High Schooland Jingzhou Central Hospital effectively helped evacuate residents from theancient city. The relocation plan for the ancient city of Jingzhou is beingcarried out, and nearly 40 administrative public institutions will be moved fromthe ancient city one after another.”
Formulating regulations whileeducating people to be civilized
Many people have been harassed by “small advertisements handedout on the streets”, and the city inspectors feel they can do nothing afterreceiving complaints about this: No laws or regulations prohibit thisexplicitly. “Jingzhou is different,” said Liu Wei, director of the Jingzhou CityManagement Department. We have issued fines on the spot for five cases of “handingout small advertisements” since August according to The Regulations on the Promotion of Civilized Behaviors in Jingzhou.
The Regulations onthe Promotion of Civilized Behaviors in Jingzhou stipulates: Citizens shallmaintain public sanitation, take good care of public facilities, and refrainfrom handing out small advertisements on the streets; those who violate thisregulation shall be given a warning and ordered to rectify their behavior bythe City Management Department; those who refuse to rectify their behaviorshall be fined no more than 200 yuan. With the detailed regulations formulated basedon the actual situation, the city inspectors are more confident in their work.
Li Yaling, section chief of the Legal Work Committee ofthe Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Jingzhou Municipality, saidthat The Regulations on the Promotion ofCivilized Behaviors in Jingzhou was formulated to meet the needs of socialgovernance, modern civilization and practical work. It is far from enough toeradicate uncivilized behavior only depending on the awareness of the masses,education and moral guidance.Behaviors must be standardized and restricted by the ruleof law.
According to Li Yaling, 140,000 people were surveyed forthe formulation of The Regulations on thePromotion of Civilized Behaviors in Jingzhou. “We put 50 common uncivilizedbehaviors on the list and surveyed people by various means such as televisioninterviews, questionnaires, phone calls and the Internet. We asked them to selectthe top 10 uncivilized behaviors and proposed standards of civilized behavior. Wehave achieved good results by formulating regulations and educating peopleabout civilized behavior, which reflects scientific and democratic legislation.”
Exploring water environmentgovernance by the rule of law
The Regulations onthe Protection of the Long Lake of Jingzhou Municipality is the first lawtargeted at a certain lake in our province
Wang Kemei, director of the Legal Work Committee of theStanding Committee of the People's Congress of Jingzhou Municipality said atthe press conference for The Regulationson the Protection of the Long Lake of Jingzhou Municipality that the LongLake is the third largest lake in our province and an important lake for floodcontrol and water storage in the upper reaches of the four-lake basin. The lakeis jointly governed by Jingzhou, Jingmen and Qianjiang. In recent years, the lakehas been shrinking in area with the water increasingly polluted and theecological environment damaged. Passing legislation to protect the Long Lakeand exploring water environment governance by the rule of law are required bothby the reality of the lake and by the need to implement the Central Government’sdecision on the construction of ecological civilization.
The Honghu Lake, also located in Jingzhou, is the largestlake of our province. Why don’t we consider it first? Wang Kemei says. Accordingto the Long Lake and the Honghu Lake are located in the upper and lower reachesof the four-lake basin respectively. The protection of the Long Lake will help relievethe pressure on the Honghu Lake in the lower reaches; protecting the Long Lakecan help accumulate experience for future projects, “We need to follow theprinciple of completing the easiest task first, and we have been conductingsurveys on the protection of the Honghu Lake.”
The area of the Long Lake in Jingzhou was not specifiedin the past, but The Regulations on theProtection of the Long Lake of Jingzhou Municipality has solved the issue.According to the regulations, projects such as photovoltaic and wind powergeneration, land reclamation for cultivation or business activities such ascatering and accommodation are strictly prohibited within the protected area.
On August 19, Liu and his brother were catching fish witheight fishing nets in their boat in the Tianxingguan section of the protectedwater when people were not prohibited from catching cutlers in the Long Lake. Theywere seized on the spot by law enforcement officers of the ecologicaladministration. They were verbally criticized and informed of The Regulations on the Protection of the LongLake of Jingzhou Municipality; the eight fishing nets and the boat wereconfiscated and a fine of 3,000 yuan was imposed.
Anyone causing dust pollution can befined up to 100,000 yuan
In recent years, Jingzhou has sped up its pace for urbanand rural construction, and the number of construction projects, such as shantyrenovations and road constructions have increased significantly. All these contributeto the prominent problem of dust pollution and directly affect the quality ofthe atmospheric environment. Among the air pollutants in Jingzhou, dustpollution accounts for 30%, much higher than the average of other cities (10%).Deng Chunlong, deputy director of the Legal Work Committee of the Standing Committeeof the People's Congress of Jingzhou Municipality, said that it is quite urgentto formulate The Regulations on theProtection of the dust pollution of Jingzhou Municipality, prevent andcontrol dust pollution in accordance with the regulations, and bring into fullplay the guiding role of local legislation in the construction of ecologicalcivilization. “The regulatory responsibility for demolishing buildings andpreventing dust pollution” is the most discussed and most controversial issueduring the legislative process. The regulations, the Housing Expropriation Departmentoversees the demolition of buildings and prevention of dust pollution forshanty town renovations; the City Management Department oversees the demolitionof illegal buildings and the prevention of dust pollution; other matters aremonitored by the Department of Housing and Urban-rural Development. Theregulations also stipulate the implementation of a credit punishment system,and any individual or organization causing dust pollution will be entered intothe social credit information service platform and announced to the public in atimely manner according to law. Any subject responsible for the prevention ofdust pollution severely violates the regulations will be monitored by regulatoryauthorities and a joint penalty will be imposed according to law. Anyone whoviolates the regulations severely can be fined up to 100,000 yuan.