Legal responsibility of cross-border mining behavior
According to Article 40 of the Mineral Resources Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) (hereinafter referred to as the Mineral Resources Law), cross-border mining actors will bear the following legal responsibilities due to different circumstances of illegal acts: 1) and be ordered to return to the mining area for mining; 2), compensation for losses; 3), confiscate the cross-border mining of mineral products and illegal income; 4), can be fined; 5), revoke the mining license; 6) Investigate criminal responsibility. There are both administrative responsibility, civil responsibility and criminal responsibility here. They can be combined according to different plots.
However, things have changed. In the Criminal Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) revised from 65438 to 0997 (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Law), the illegal and criminal acts in Articles 39 and 44 of the Mineral Resources Law were clearly defined as "the crime of unauthorized mining" and "the crime of destructive mining" (Article 343), and these two articles were applied to the original criminal law together. Then, does the criminal responsibility of Article 40 of the Mineral Resources Law still exist? Can the criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of cross-border mining be investigated with the crime of intentionally destroying public and private property in Article 252 of the current Criminal Law (that is, Article 156 before revision)? The author believes that with the revision of the criminal law, the criminal responsibility of illegal cross-border mining no longer exists, and the original article 156 should not be replaced by article 275 of the criminal law when the mineral resources law is revised. The reasons are as follows: 1), the revised criminal law does not stipulate the criminalization of cross-border behavior; 2) The perpetrator of cross-border mining intentionally illegally occupies the mineral resources owned by the state for profit, rather than intentionally damaging the mineral resources owned by the state, so it does not meet the characteristics of "intentionally damaging the company's property"; 3) From a practical point of view, when the cross-border mining actor refuses to return to the mining area for mining, the competent authority will revoke his mining license according to law. After the mining license is revoked, if the actor continues to mine, it is already unlicensed mining. At this time, if the circumstances are serious, the offender can be investigated for criminal responsibility according to the crime of unauthorized mining, so as to stop the illegal behavior and make the perpetrator suffer due punishment.
Compensation for losses belongs to the category of civil liability. In my opinion, after giving corresponding administrative penalties such as confiscation and fines to cross-border miners, the expected interests of cross-border miners no longer exist, and the damage caused to mineral resources has been compensated. In order to standardize and facilitate practical work, this civil liability for compensation for losses should be deleted when the Mineral Resources Law is revised.