This is the largest land subsidence case in the country, involving 15 thousand mu of cultivated land in nine administrative villages in one township. Mining is one of the oldest activities of mankind. Due to the abundant coal resources, a certain city has become a resource-based city that started with coal and thrived with mines. After underground coal is mined, the mining area often collapses. This case is a dispute over compensation for land damage caused by mining.
1. The case
The plaintiff in this case has nine administrative departments in Lifeng No. 1 Village, Lifeng No. 2 Village, Lifeng No. 3 Village, Dongwangfeng Village, Xiwangfeng Village, Dongfengfeng Village, Xifengfeng Village, Wangzhuang Village, and Xinzhuang Village in a certain city. The village committee, the defendant in this case, the mining bureau of the city, is subordinate to the provincial coal department and is a direct agency of the Ministry of Coal. The author accepts the special authorization of the plaintiff to act as its agent. The plaintiff is located in the coal mining areas of the Wangfeng Mine, Lifeng Mine, and Zhucun Mine under the defendant. For many years, due to the large-scale coal mining of the above-mentioned three mines, the plaintiff’s arable land has been severely collapsed and fractured, which has caused the original water conservancy facilities to be perfect and drought and flood protection High-quality arable land has become a "ghost-hard-to-plant" land that is uneven, ravines, and cracks all over, which seriously affect irrigation and farming. Agricultural output has declined severely, with a general reduction of 30.5% per mu of arable land, and some as much as 70-80%, or even no harvest. . The original high-yield Wangfeng Township has become a grain-deficient township. Farmers rely on buying high-priced grain to live on, and even need to buy high-priced grain to pay for public grain. At the same time, the water conservancy facilities built by the plaintiff, such as canals and motor-powered wells, have also caused extensive damage due to continuous land subsidence. At present, the land subsidence is still going on and the damage is still happening, causing huge economic losses to the plaintiff. Over the years, the plaintiff has requested the defendant to solve the above problems through various channels. The defendant has not solved the problem of agricultural losses caused by land subsidence, except for intermittently solving the problem of cracks in part of the land. According to the document No. 58 of the Municipal People’s Government in 1987 According to the "Notice on Relevant Issues of Relocation of Mining Villages and Compensation for Land Subsidence", the plaintiff requested the defendant to compensate the agricultural losses caused by the land subsidence totaling 23,956,981.81 yuan, and compensation for water conservancy facility losses totaling 701,270 yuan. The defendant admitted that some of the plaintiff’s land and its attachments had indeed been affected by coal mining in the past, but they had been compensated in accordance with the policies at the time. They believed that in accordance with the spirit of the law and relevant policies, compensation was not made in the past. The compensation was repeated again. Therefore, it was deemed that the plaintiff’s claim could not be established. The court found that: since 1974, the plaintiff’s arable land collapsed, cracked, and water channels were destroyed due to the defendant’s underground coal mining. The two parties entered into an agreement based on the Municipal Revolutionary Committee Document No. 11 of 1974 and the Municipal Government Document No. 58 of 1987. The defendant paid the plaintiff 13 yuan per mu and 200 yuan per mu for land renovation, but this was only a moderate compensation for the cracks formed by the collapse of the plaintiff’s arable land caused by coal mining, and did not cover the loss of agricultural output caused by the collapse. Compensation was made in accordance with the provisions of the No. 58 Document of the Municipal Government of 1987. Based on this, it is believed that the defendant should bear civil liability for the formation of the dispute in this case. In order to determine the plaintiff’s land subsidence area and the length of the canal damage, the city’s Intermediate People’s Court entrusted the Coal Mining Damage Technical Appraisal Committee of the China Coal Society (hereinafter referred to as the Coal Mining Damage Appraisal Committee) to conduct the appraisal with mutual consent. The appraisal report shows that the defendant belongs to Li The coal mining in Feng Mine, Wangfeng Mine and Zhucun Mine was from 1974 to 1987 and from 1987 to 1995. The plaintiff’s arable land subsided to 14,388.2 acres and 30,000 water channels were destroyed. Six thousand seven hundred and sixty meters. In addition, based on the certification of the Zhongzhan District (the plaintiff belongs to the district) Planning Committee and the Grain Branch on the negotiated purchase price of autumn grains and the state ordered price, and the certification of the Water Resources Bureau on the pricing of the canal project, the defendant was sentenced to compensate the plaintiff for land subsidence losses of 1,100 It is divided into four points of 543,130 yuan, and the plaintiff shall be compensated 688,820 yuan for the loss of the canal, and shall bear the acceptance fee, appraisal fee and other expenses of this case. After the judgment of the first instance, the defendant refused to accept it and filed an appeal. The author continues to accept special authorization from the nine village committees as their agents.
In the second instance, the appellant provided to the Provincial Higher People's Court a "Explanation on Several Issues in the Technical Appraisal Report of the Association" issued by the Coal Mining Damage Appraisal Committee, and used the "Explanation" as evidence to prove it. The "Explanation" shows: ①The more than 14,000 mu identified in the appraisal report is the entire range of the "slumped area", not the range that caused the reduction of cultivated land, and the range of production reduction is only a part of the range of the "slumped area"; ②The length of the canal determined in the appraisal report 36,700 meters, including both damaged and undamaged. In this regard, the author believes that: First, the actual collapse of the cropland within the scope of the grain output will inevitably be affected, and the output will inevitably be reduced. Therefore, the actual collapse area can certainly be used as an accurate basis for the appellee in this case to claim compensation for the loss of the collapsed cropland. Second, from the perspective of the “explanation” itself: First, the legal evidence types stipulated in Article 63 of China’s Civil Procedure Law include documentary evidence, physical evidence, audio-visual materials, witness testimony, statements of the parties, conclusions of appraisal, and transcripts of inquests. "Explanation" is not any kind and cannot be used as a basis for finalizing the case; secondly, the appraisal report in the first instance was approved by both parties in the case and was commissioned and paid by the Municipal Intermediate Court. The Municipal Intermediate Court is the client, and the Coal Mining Damage Appraisal Committee It is the trustee, and according to the relativity of the contract, it is only responsible to the Municipal Intermediate People's Court. Therefore, the explanation given by the Coal Mining Damage Appraisal Committee to one party without the client’s knowledge shall be invalid. Third, the Municipal Intermediate People’s Court only entrusted the Damage Appraisal Committee to appraise the actual collapsed area, and did not authorize the appraisal of the scope of the reduction in cultivated land. This "explanation" not only exceeds the scope of appraisal entrustment, but also involves the value judgment of the case, so it should be invalid. In the end, what the court commissioned to appraise was the actual damaged length of the canal. During the appraisal process, the actual measurement was also the damaged length of the canal. The “explain” that distorts the facts is obviously false. In summary, the "explanation" provided by the Municipal Bureau of Mines does not explain anything, nor should it affect anything, and there is no need for a new appraisal. The above opinions of the author have been fully adopted by the Provincial High Court. After the trial, the Provincial Higher People's Court affirmed the facts found in the first-instance judgment and ruled accordingly: the appeal was rejected and the original judgment was upheld.
In this case, the defendant (appellant) admitted that his mining activities caused land subsidence, cracks and other facts on the plaintiff (appellee), but believed that he had already made "full area comprehensive compensation" for these damages and should not make repeated compensation , While the plaintiff admitted that the defendant had compensated for the land damage caused by its mining, but believed that the defendant only compensated for the land cracks (kiln cracks) caused by the mining, and compensated for the loss of the land collapse caused by the mining, so in history The actual direction of the compensation has become the focus of the dispute between the two parties in this case.
2. The actual direction of the compensation made in history in this case
The author believes that the defendant did “compensate” the plaintiff in history, but the “compensation” mentioned by the defendant was made for the broken joints in the kiln caused by mining, and it does not affect the plaintiff’s lawsuit for compensation for losses caused by land subsidence. request. In order to prove our claim, we submitted the following evidence:
First, the defendant’s compensation of 13 yuan per mu and 200 yuan per mu was only the cost of filling the cracks in the kiln caused by the defendant’s mining. From the point of view of the compensation unit, although the defendant made the compensation in units of acres, since the cost of the cracked joints of the flat-filled kiln has undergone a process from cubic or meter to the calculation of acres, it cannot be considered that the compensation is based on acres. The compensation made by the unit must be for the loss of land subsidence. Before 1974, for the kiln fractures that occurred during the coal mining process, out of consideration of the safety of the mine, the mine started to fill the material by itself. Due to the inconvenience of this method, the villagers negotiated with the village to fill it. The mine calculates the amount of labor and materials used in cubic or meters and pays it to the farmers. With the expansion of the coal mining area, the cracks intensified and the safety factor of the mine also increased. For this reason, Jiaoxi Mine took the lead in introducing the method of calculating the filling cost per mu. All mines followed suit, and the city’s Revolutionary Committee in 1974 Document No. 11 was finalized and promoted. This document is the meeting minutes of the city’s second industrial-agricultural relations symposium. Among them, Article 3 stipulates: “Kiln fractures due to mining, based on the principle of balancing national and collective interests, the mine must proactively negotiate with the brigade The specific method is based on Jiaoxi Mine’s compensation. The agricultural team will be paid 13 yuan per acre. The large coal will be collected once and the agricultural team will fill it by themselves. The mine and the team will contact the team to measure, and the coal mining development area will be resolved twice a year. "This calculation method is to delineate the influence line according to the underground mining area and determine the range of cracks. No matter how many cracks appear in this range, it is calculated in acres. For example, as one of the plaintiffs, Li Fengsan Village and Li Fengkuang signed an agreement on January 14, 1976. The agreement stipulated: According to Article 3 of the Municipal Party Committee Document No. 11 of 1974, kiln fractures occurred due to mining , 13 yuan per acre to the agricultural team, which will be filled by the agricultural team itself. The compensation fee is 6,897.80 yuan. The city government document No. 58 of 1987 continued this calculation unit. The first paragraph of Article 3 of the document stipulates: "The village will fill the kiln with cracks caused by mining, and the mine will pay 200 yuan per mu for the repair of the land." The so-called land repair fee is the kiln crack. The filling fee. For example, the agreement signed between Wangfeng Mine and Xiwangfeng Village on December 22, 1992 stipulates that according to the provisions of the No. 58 document of the municipal government in 1987, a compensation of 200 yuan per mu for land renovation costs. Therefore, according to the above two documents, the defendant’s compensation to the plaintiff at the standard of 13 yuan per mu and 200 yuan per mu was the labor cost for filling the kiln’s cracks, not for the land subsidence caused by mining. Compensation for losses caused by farmers.
Second, the defendant had signed two agreements with Beizhu Village, which is adjacent to the plaintiff in this case, in 1989 and 1992 respectively in accordance with the No. 58 Document of the Municipal Government in 1987. One was for coal mining at a working face in the west area of the mine. The subsidence of the ground surface caused the two production teams of the village to pay for the accumulation of water in the cultivated land, and the other was for the damage to the buildings and the flooding of the farmland caused by the surface subsidence caused by the mining of the two working faces in the southwestern area of the mine. Compensation. The two agreements are based on the provisions of Article 3, Item 2 of the Municipal Government’s Document No. 58 of 1987: “If the land collapses due to mining, slopes or unevenness is formed, which cannot be irrigated and affects the output, the mine shall compensate The land is still used by farmers for three years of output." Both agreements compensate the village based on the three-year grain output per mu. It can be seen that the defendant has made different regulations for the two situations of land cracks and land subsidence, and adopted two different compensation standards. Therefore, the defendant is well aware of the difference between land cracks and land subsidence, that is, Said that the defendant knew the direction of its compensation and also knew the fact that the agreement with the plaintiff was aimed at cracks in the land.
Among the above two pieces of evidence, the first piece of evidence positively proves the historical direction of the defendant’s historical compensation, and the second piece of evidence confirms the historical direction of the defendant’s historical compensation. The two pieces of evidence support each other and jointly prove This is the fact that the defendant’s historical compensation to the plaintiff was the payment of crack filling costs for the land cracks caused by mining, and the defendant has not paid compensation for the land subsidence caused by mining. Therefore, the defendant cannot refute the plaintiff’s claim for compensation for the loss of land subsidence caused to the plaintiff due to coal mining because of its historical compensation for the cracks in the land caused by coal mining. Compensation for the huge economic losses caused to the plaintiff.
In order to prove that the compensation made in history is the full compensation for the damage of coal mining subsidence, the defendant provided a reply from the Ministry of Coal Industry of the People’s Republic of China on the issue of compensation for coal mining subsidence by the Municipal Mining Bureau (Mei Han Zi (1995) No. 201) number). The reply pointed out that what the Municipal Bureau of Mines made to the plaintiff was all compensation for the coal mining subsidence damage. Regarding the reply, the author believes that: First, this reply is not a regulation, it has neither legal effect, nor can it be used as a basis for reference; second, this reply is only a view of the defendant’s superior department, because the defendant has a certain stake in the superior department. It was not objective and fair due to the influence of departmental protectionism. Therefore, the reply is not the evidence of this case; again, the first article affirmed the municipal government's No. 58 document of 1987, and the second article actually denied the case. The documents are inconsistent; in the end, the content of this reply does not conform to the actual situation. Therefore, the author believes that this reply cannot be used as the basis for the verdict of this case. This view was also recognized by the court.
In summary, the plaintiff clearly has an advantage in terms of the amount of evidence and the strength of the evidence. Based on the above evidence and facts, the court affirmed the author’s agency opinion, and the first and second instance courts determined that the defendant had not compensated Losses caused to the plaintiff due to land subsidence caused by coal mining. On this basis, there is the appraisal report of the Coal Mining Damage Appraisal Committee, the autumn grain negotiation price issued by the Planning Committee and the Grain Branch, and the national purchase price, and there is a certification from the Water Resources Bureau on the pricing of the water canal project. Compensation is a matter of course.
One of the highlights of this case is that for the first time land is used as a property to request damages. The following author discusses the property of land.
3. The property of the land in this case
(1) Property analysis of land
Land is a natural resource. According to the definition of the United Nations Environment Programme, natural resources are the general term for natural environmental factors that can generate economic value under certain time and technical conditions and improve the current and future welfare of mankind, including land, water, biology, energy and minerals, etc. . Land, especially cultivated land, as a kind of natural resources, is not only the basis for human survival and development, but also an environmental element. Based on the high attention to these two attributes, the state has promulgated a series of laws and regulations such as the Land Management Law, and formulated a basic farmland protection system, an overall land use planning system, a land survey system, a land supervision system, and an approval system for farmland occupation, etc. In order to carry out strategic protection of the land, however, this strategic protection has not effectively alleviated the difficulties faced by the land. On the one hand, China’s arable land is still pressing toward the cordon of 1.8 billion mu. On the other hand, the land The overall quality has not been fundamentally improved. The author believes that one of the important reasons for this situation is that the property nature of the land included in the definition has not been fully valued.
According to the definition of the United Nations Environment Programme, in addition to the above two attributes, natural resources can also generate economic value, which is economic or property. Land is a kind of natural resources, and of course it should be property. Second, property refers to the general term for rights that have monetary value and are protected by law. Land is one of the elements of production and one of the basic factors necessary to maintain the operation of the national economy and the production and operation of market entities. It has obvious economic and monetary value. At the same time, the relevant laws of our country strictly protect the land. Therefore, the land is a kind of property. The cultivated land involved in this case is a type of land, and of course it is also property.
(2) The property of the land in this case
The protection of property is mainly realized through the form of property ownership. Therefore, as a kind of property, land needs to be clarified first of all. In our country, the subject of land ownership is dualistic. According to the provisions of my country's Constitution and Land Administration Law, urban land is owned by the state, and land in rural areas and suburban areas is collectively owned, unless the law provides otherwise. In this case, the land in the nine villages of Wangfeng Township in the suburbs of the city does not belong to the state, so the ownership of the land in the nine villages should belong to the nine village committees in accordance with the law. At the same time, the first paragraph of Article 74 of my country's "General Principles of Civil Law" stipulates that collectively-owned land and forests, mountains, grasslands, wastelands, and beaches as stipulated by the law are collectively owned by the working people. Therefore, in this case, the land where the nine villages are located should be defined as the legal property of the nine villages.
In this case, land was filed as a kind of property for the first time. This view was fully recognized by the court, which enabled the nine administrative villages to successfully resolve the problems that have not been resolved through various channels for many years. The victory in this case will not only win a verdict and negotiate a fair statement for the villagers in nine villages, but will also have a positive impact on my country's land protection and the settlement of the "three rural" issues.
(3) The positive effect of this case
First, as mentioned above, due to the neglect of land property, in the field of land protection, China has adopted strategic protection measures with the state and local governments as the main body, formulated a series of laws and regulations, and formed a large number of legal systems. However, the large-scale strategic protection has not been able to receive good results, and the trend of land, especially cultivated land, has been reduced, and the quality has not been effectively curbed. This case defines land as a type of property legally owned by rural collective economic organizations, emphasizes the economic value of land to the owner, affirms the village committee’s qualification as the subject of civil litigation, and affirms the plaintiff’s right to demand compensation from the defendant when it suffers damage. From the defendant’s point of view, this case reminds the resource developer to avoid damage to the land as a legal property while developing a resource, so as to protect the land and prevent the reduction in the area and quality of the land, especially the cultivated land. From the plaintiff’s point of view, this case tells the majority of collective economic organizations that, as land owners, they can use legal weapons to protect their legally owned land property when they are infringed, thereby mobilizing the village committee to become the main body of land supervision and management , To maximize the supervision and management power of governments at all levels to achieve effective land supervision. Therefore, the understanding of the property of land can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of land owners and relevant resource development subjects to protect the land, can alleviate the difficulties faced by land protection in my country to a large extent, and protect my country's land resources to the greatest extent. In this sense, the author believes that this case will open up new ideas for land protection in my country.
Second, the land issue is the root of the "three rural" issues. For a long time, agriculture has made great contributions to the development of industry and to the development of China’s social economy. This has also resulted in an ever-widening gap between urban and rural areas. In order to narrow this gap, China has introduced various measures to support the development of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. However, most of these policies are limited to increasing various fiscal transfer payments. In the final analysis, they are "blood transfusion"-style development policies. The internal "blood-making" mechanism for the development of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers has not yet been formed. The exploration of the property of land in this case provides a useful reference for the formation of this "hematopoietic" mechanism. As a kind of property, land first needs to clarify the property right, that is, the subject of ownership. my country’s Constitution and Land Management Law both clearly stipulate that rural collective economic organizations have ownership of land in rural areas and suburban areas that are not owned by the state. Secondly, as a kind of property, land has economic value, and the economic value of land, especially rural land, needs to be realized through dynamic circulation. Specifically, it needs to be realized through the circulation of land contractual management rights. The Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the "Several Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Stable Development of Agriculture in 2009 to Continue to Increase Farmers’ Income" are required by the spirit of the No. 1 Central Document in 2009. In this sense, this case has an impact on land property. The beneficial exploration has promoted to a certain extent another rural land reform movement after China's land reform in 1956 and the rural economic system reform in 1991. It will have a positive impact on the solution of China's "three rural" issues.
In summary, this case for the first time used rural land as a kind of property and filed a request for damage compensation, which was fully recognized by the court. The resulting attention to the property of land will open up new ideas for land protection in China and will To a certain extent, it can provide reference for the reform of rural land contracting management rights that is being carried out in China, and it will also promote the solution of China's "three rural" issues.
On the basis of determining the property of the land, the author gave up the old way of administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation to handle the disputes in this case, and chose the way of civil litigation.
4. Dispute resolution channels in this case
This case is a dispute over compensation for land damage caused by the land subsidence caused by the defendant’s coal mining. The land subsidence caused by the defendant’s coal mining caused huge losses to the plaintiff, such as the destruction of water conservancy facilities and the massive reduction in agricultural production. The plaintiff tried to negotiate with the defendant to solve the problem, but to no avail; in order to solve this problem, the plaintiff went from 1988 when the land subsidence appeared. During the eight years before the author was entrusted to act as an attorney to prosecute, the people’s congress representatives continued to submit proposals to the people’s congresses at all levels, but they were not effectively resolved; because before this case, in practice, it was customary to adopt administrative reconsiderations and administrative reconsiderations for land-related disputes. The way of administrative litigation, therefore, before the civil litigation was filed, the plaintiff had also applied to the government for administrative reconsideration, which also failed to completely solve the problem. When the plaintiff believed that the defendant’s coal mining was about to cause damage to his land, the author helped the plaintiff file a civil lawsuit with the help of the property analysis of the land, so that the problem that had not been completely resolved for a long time was smoothly resolved.
According to the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the Land Management Law, and the General Principles of Civil Law, more than 15,000 mu of cultivated land in the nine villages of Wangfeng Township that was infringed by the defendant belongs to the plaintiff’s legal property. Article 117 of my country's "General Principles of Civil Law" stipulates that the damage to the state, collective property or the property of others shall be restored to the original state or compensated at a discount. If the victim suffers other major losses as a result, the infringer shall compensate for the losses. In this case, the defendant caused a large-scale collapse of the plaintiff’s land and massive damage to water conservancy facilities due to coal mining, which caused huge economic losses to the plaintiff and should be compensated according to law. Of course, considering the peculiarities of the defendant’s coal mining behavior, we did not fully compensate the actual losses as required by law. Instead, we only required the defendant to compensate the plaintiff’s three-year output loss from the collapsed land in accordance with the provisions of the municipal government’s No. 58 document of 1987. The plaintiff’s claim was fully supported by the court.
Based on the property nature of the land, this case was filed as a civil lawsuit, which finally helped the plaintiff to solve the old and difficult problem that has not been resolved through various channels for a long time, thus opening up a new way to resolve similar land disputes, which is important for protecting land. The legal property of a peasant will have a positive impact on the foundation of our country’s economic and social development. It is from this meaning that the author believes that this case can become a precedent, and the judgment of this case can be used as the basis for the court to try such cases in the future. This is also the inevitable for the mutual absorption and reference of the two major legal systems in the world under the current globalization background. trend.
The legal system refers to the classification of laws based on their historical traditions and external characteristics. In the contemporary world, there are two major legal systems: the civil law system (civil law system, statutory law system, and Roman law system) and the common law system (common law system, case law system). The civil law system uses public law and private law as the basis for the classification of laws, and tends to codify and adopts the litigation model of the questioning system; the common law and equity law divides the law, pays attention to the legal effect of precedents, and adopts the defense system The litigation model. The statutory law can guarantee the stability of the law, but it cannot meet the requirements of the complicated economic and social life for legal flexibility; case law fully reflects the flexibility of the law, but it also creates the problem of insufficient legal stability. The background of globalization promotes the comprehensive integration of the world economy, and at the same time promotes the integration of laws. The two major legal systems learn from each other and are improving day by day. Common law countries have begun to formulate statutory codes to achieve the stability of the law under flexible conditions; civil law countries have gradually adopted precedents as the basis for court trials to increase legal flexibility, such as the typical cases issued by the Supreme People’s Court of China , Has certain legal effect on the trials of our country's courts. In this case, land was regarded as a kind of property for the first time, and the civil litigation initiated on this basis first proposed the property nature of land and opened up a new way of resolving similar land disputes. According to this, this case will promote the two major legal systems to a certain extent. Further integration and reference.
V. Conclusion
This case lasted more than two years and involved about 15,000 mu of land subsided by coal mining, involving approximately 10,000 villagers in nine administrative villages in one township. The author analyzed the property of land, and based on this, abandoned the old ways of administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation that were used to deal with such land disputes, and chose to file this case as a civil lawsuit, and finally solved the problems that plagued nine administrative villages. The eight-year old problem of villagers. Among them, the recognition of land as a kind of property will open up new ideas for the protection of land resources in our country, and will also provide some help to the reform of the transfer of rural land contractual management rights that is being carried out in our country, and the solution to the "three rural" issues will result positive influence. At the same time, the civil litigation approach proposed in this case for resolving land damage compensation disputes has a good reference for my country to deal with similar disputes in the future, has the significance of precedent, and will promote the reference and integration of the two major legal systems in the contemporary world to a certain extent.