The “Several Provisions on the Participation of People’s Assessors with Expertise in the Trial of Cases involving Environmental Resource” (关于具有专门知识的人民陪审员参加环境资源案件审理的若干规定, hereinafter the “Provisions”), newly issued by China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC), came into effect on 1 Aug. 2023.
The highlights of the Provisions are as follows.
- Where the facts of environmental resource cases involve complicated specialized issues, at least one people’s assessor with expertise shall participate in the trial by the collegial panel.
- People’s assessors with expertise include (i) people with expertise in the field of environmental resources and (ii) people who have worked for three or more years in the relevant administrative departments of environmental resources, scientific research institutions, institutions of higher learning, enterprises, and social organizations.
- When people’s assessors with expertise participate in the deliberation of environmental resource cases, they shall give explicit opinions on specialized issues involved in the facts of the case.
- If the opinions given by people’s assessors with expertise on the specialized issues are inconsistent with those of other members of the collegial panel, the collegial panel may submit the case to the president of the court to decide whether to submit it to the adjudication committee for discussion and decision-making. Relevant circumstances shall be recorded in the munites of the deliberations.
Photo by Noppon Meenuch on Unsplash
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
