A few days ago, the court of Xixiangtang District of Nanning City handed down a judgment on the administrative lawsuit of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) suing the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for five-year pangolin rescue information disclosure: the judgment affirms that it is illegal for the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region not to publish and disclose the rescue information of pangolins in different batches from 2012 to 2016, and requires them to publish the relevant information according to law. The case lasted nearly two years, and it was not easy to win. The final verdict is of great significance to wildlife conservation including pangolins.
Review of the case history:
On August 22nd, 2017, in order to fully understand the pangolin rescue information of the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the past five years and to provide data support for the next pangolin rescue work, CBCGDF applied to the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for disclosing the pangolin rescue information for nearly five years since 2012.
On September 5th, 2017, the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region responded that its management of pangolin shelter and rescue was carried out in different batches. It did not carry out statistics according to the year and did not undertake the summary work for information disclosure applications, so it could not provide annual information.
On September 14th, 2017, according to the response of the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, CBCGDF re-applied in batches for rescue information of pangolin in the past five years since 2012, but the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region refused to reply.
On March 26th, 2018, CBCGDF filed an administrative lawsuit with the Xixiangtang Court of Nanning City, demanding that the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region disclose relevant information.
On June 6th, 2018, Xixiangtang Court opened a court hearing the case.
On September 15th, 2018, Xixiangtang Court judge to dismiss the prosecution on the grounds of summary (even the plaintiff and defendant had written incorrectly in the judgment). CBCGDF then appealed the ruling to the Nanning Intermediate Court.
On December 30th, 2018, the Nanning Intermediate Court decided to cancel the judge of the Xixiangtang Court and ordered the Xixiangtang Court to continue hearing the case. After the case was sent back to Xixiangtang Court for further trial, the presiding judge was still the judge who rejected the last ruling. CBCGDF submitted an application for withdrawal for approval and replaced the presiding judge.
On July 31st, 2019, the case was heard for the second time in Xixiangtang Court.
On August 8th, 2019, which was nine days after the second hearing of the case, CBCGDF received the administrative judge of the case, which determined that the relevant parties of the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region had violated the law and required them to perform its statutory duties according to law.
After nearly two years, CBCGDF finally got an impartial judgment. According to this judgment, the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region should disclose the rescue information of pangolins in different batches in the past five years since 2012 according to law. CBCGDF will conduct in-depth research and analysis on the rescue information of pangolins in each batch in the past five years, which will provide data support for the improvement of the rescue work of pangolins in China in the future.
At the same time, CBCGDF hopes that on the basis of this judgment, besides fulfilling the responsibility of government information disclosure according to law, the Department of Forestry of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region should also investigate the responsibility of the relevant parties. Only in this way can similar administrative violations be avoided.
Government information disclosure is the responsibility of the public, but for a long-time lack of supervision, the relevant departments are easily unscrupulous, which is the current difficulties facing wildlife protection. In the process of active wildlife conservation, social organizations and the public also have to face a small number of vested interests who willfully use their power, which is also one of the important problems to be solved in the construction of ecological civilization.
China’s wildlife conservation system and social organizations are witnessing the successful judgment of the pangolin’s five-year administrative lawsuit of information disclosure. The hard-won lawsuit represents that at least we can start to effectively promote the information disclosure of forest wildlife conservation systems throughout the country, and at least earnestly do a detailed job of rescue records in order to make it disclose. The workaround information disclosure objectively prevents many illegal disposal actions in wildlife protection.
In the field of wildlife conservation in China, relevant departments are also requested to study and find out the reasons for illegal administration and seriously deal with those responsible people for illegal administration. Just like the braveness of “Scrape the Poison off the Bone” or “cutting the wrist of hero”, relevant departments need to dig deeply into the ideological and organizational roots in order to take this opportunity to earnestly study the idea of ecological civilization, and jointly protect our precious wildlife resources and practice ecological civilization.
Original Chinese article:
http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4857/9549.html
By / Xue Tongtong