EPL took part in a regular seminar of the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, which was held on September 27 at the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and was devoted to monitoring compliance with the law during the pre-trial investigation in the area of environmental protection.
EPL environmental scientist Bohdan Kuchenko once again outlined the systemic problems identified by the organization in the application of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure in Ukraine, such as the low quality of the vast majority of EIA reports, low level of institutional capacity of authorized bodies to conduct good quality EIA procedures and issue impartial conclusions.
Olha Melen-Zabramna, head of EPL Legal Department, spoke about the possible role of the prosecutor’s office in cases of violation of the Law “On Environmental Impact Assessment”, in particular, the law itself speaks about the following measures to influence violators:
- challenging in court decisions, actions or omissions in the process of environmental impact assessment, EIA conclusions. Unfortunately, as of today we know about only one case of appealing by the prosecutor’s office of EIA conclusion and it was in the case of Rokoban Ltd http://epl.org.ua/announces/sudy-vykryvayut-lyapy-mindovkillya-u-spravah-stosovno-oskarzhennya-vysnovku-z-ovd-ta-litsenziyi-na-povodzhennya-iz-nebezpechnymy-vidhodamy/
- appeal to the court for a temporary ban (injunction) or termination of activities of enterprises in case of violation of the legislation on environmental impact assessment, in particular, the absence of an EIA conclusion, if such a conclusion is necessary.
The organizers of the seminar reaffirmed the importance of EIA procedure and the prosecutor’s office stressed its readiness to be more active in the application of the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, as well as in the investigation of crimes related to adverse impact on the environment.
