| Constitutional Court rescues environmental protection |
| Monday, 24 May 2010 20:45 |
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One of SA’s most powerful environmental protection tools has been rescued from the legal scrapheap by the Constitutional Court, writes Tony Carnie in The Mercury. Overturning a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal, 10 judges of the Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that it was vital to uphold the ability of government officials to act swiftly when there were urgent threats to the environment. Although the case centred on property developers destroying rare plants on the outskirts of Pretoria, the ruling has nationwide implications for government officials, environmental watchdog groups and developers. It involves section 31A of the Environmental Conservation Act, which is seen by several legal experts as especially useful because of recent erosion of the Environmental Impact Assessment laws. The case began in 2005, when HTF Developers began to subdivide plots on a piece of land containing several Red Data list (threatened) plants. When the Gauteng Environment Department learned about the risk of damage it issued a directive under section 31A, which gives officials the power to stop development immediately if they believe the environment ‘may be seriously damaged, endangered or detrimentally affected’. The developers then went to the High Court to challenge the directive, but lost the case. However, on appeal in the Supreme Court, Judge Piet Combrinck and three other judges ruled in favour of the developers. Combrinck found that the Gauteng Environment Department was bound by another section of the law to publish a notice in the Government Gazette before acting and to give the developers 30 days to comment on the proposed directive. He recognised that there might be urgent cases involving threats to the environment, but said that in such cases the government could seek a temporary interdict against a developer as an interim solution. When the matter went to the Constitutional Court, 10 judges found Combrinck's interpretation would negate the power of officials to protect the environment in emergency situations. Source: Legalbrief ENVIRONMENTAL, Issue No:0042 |
Comments
Please take a look at the link below and see what damage "fracking" does to the environment.
Regards,
Don.
http://current.com/search.htm?s=on&v=on&r=off&context=&context_id=&context_type=&q=gasland&x=0&y=0
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