After Four Months, the First Domestic Public Interest Litigation on the Endangered Species Pangolins was Approved by the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region- 中国生物多样性保护与绿色发展基金会

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After Four Months, the First Domestic Public Interest Litigation on the Endangered Species Pangolins was Approved by the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

2019/1/13 19:09:00 本站

On January 11, 2019, after correcting the complaint filed, CBCGDF finally obtained the notice of acceptance of the case of the Nanning Intermediate People's Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This means that the first domestic public interest litigation on pangolins, which lasted for four months, was officially approved.

On September 14, 2018, CBCGDF filed an environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) lawsuit with the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court, that the Guangxi Terrestrial Wildlife Rescue and Epidemic Disease Detection Center (hereinafter referred to as "Rescue Center") did not fully implement the rescuing on the received seized pangolins, that led to the death of all the pangolins. The lawsuit used the Rescue Center as the defendant, and its direct superior unit, the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is the third party.

On August 21, 2017, the third detachment of the Marine Police of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region seized a suspected illegal transportation of precious and endangered wild animals. On the spot, 32 living national-level protected pangolins, and 2 dead pangolins were handed over to the Forestry Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The rescuing measures was taken by the Guangxi Terrestrial Wildlife Rescue and Epidemic Disease Detection Center, which is under the administration of the Forestry Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

However, as of October 22, 2017, the group of rescued pangolins (32 amongst were alive) all died. The rescued pangolins survived for the shortest 13 days and the longest 66 days. Among them, there were 8 live Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica). Before entering the Rescue Center, their health status was “emaciate, no obvious trauma” and was qualified for quarantine. Before receiving the rescuing from the Guangxi side, CBCGDF once recommended to join in the rescuing with other international ecological and environmental organizations together, and to release them to the wild after rescuing, all of which were rejected by Guangxi side.

CBCGDF believes that in this rescue incident, the Rescue Center clearly had improperly behaved to perform the rescuing, and the Forestry Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as its superior unit, neglected to exercise supervision and does not care about the Rescue Center’s dereliction of duty. Eventually led to the death of the 32 living pangolins. Around this rescue incident CBCGDF applied to the two defendants for information disclosure many times, and the results were not satisfactory.

Thus, on September 14, 2018, CBCGDF submitted the materials for filing to the Nanning Intermediate People's Court. According to the number of copies that should be submitted in accordance with the law, CBCGDF submitted three civil complaints and evidence materials. However, the Nanning Intermediate People's Court stated that they only charge one copy and others will deal with it later. On September 17, the Nanning Intermediate People's Court founding the case called CBCGDF, claiming that the complaint could not be found and required CBCGDF to mail the complaint. CBCGDF immediately sent two complaints. Later, since the case was not submitted for formal filing after more than two months since filed the complaint, in mid-November 2018, the CBCGDF EPIL girl directed the incident to report to the Nanning Intermediate People's Court and the Higher People's Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Guangxi's supervisory department.

On January 8, 2019, CBCGDF received a notice of correction of the prosecution materials sent by the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court, and again requested CBCGDF to provide two copies of the civil complaint and evidence. On January 11, CBCGDF carried the civil complaint and evidence of the case for the third time and went to the Nanning Intermediate People’s Court for submission. But according to the first and second paragraphs of Article 7 of the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Registration and Docketing of Cases by People's Courts: If the complaints and materials submitted by the parties do not meet the requirements, the People’s Court shall notify the designation in writing at one time. If the parties make corrections within the specific time limit, the period in which the People’s Court decides whether to file the case shall be counted from the date of receipt of the correction materials.

Today, although it took four months to submit (including supplementary) complaints three times, the first public interest litigation on pangolins in China was finally filed, making CBCGDF more feel the difficulty through the journey.

In this civil complaint, CBCGDF filed three lawsuits: demanding that the defendant compensate the ecological damage caused by the death of eight quarantine qualified pangolins due to the defendant’s fault (the amount of ecological damage is subject to evaluation); Apologize to the national public media on the ecological damage caused by its fault; the defendant bears all necessary expenses incurred by the plaintiff in this lawsuit.

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