Detectives sharpen skills at environment course

Detectives sharpen skills at environment course

SERPONG, West Java (JP): Cases of pollution and environmental
damage will continue to increase if reports and complaints are
not handled seriously, National Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dibyo
Widodo said yesterday.

Different perspectives among law enforcers and a lack of
skills and coordination are the main constraints to coping with
environmental cases, he admitted.

"All these can impede investigations and the completion of
dossiers on pollution and environmental damage to be submitted to
courts," he said in his opening address of a first national
course for police detectives on environmental law enforcement.

Out of the 104 cases which have surfaced since the
environmental law was passed in 1982, many are still under
investigation, Dibyo said.

Only 12 cases were settled in court while others were settled
by administrative sanctions or mediation, Dibyo said.

The four-day course which runs through Friday is being
attended by 88 heads of detectives and their staff from across
the country. It is being held by the National Police and the
Environmental Impact Management Agency.

This is the first educational session on the environment for
police, while other law enforcers such as prosecutors have often
been sent overseas to study the subject.

Through the course Dibyo expressed the hope that the
participants "would be able to overcome different perspectives
among law enforcers which until now still stand in the way of
enforcing the environmental law".

Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said the course
is aimed at improving the detectives' skills that will enable
them to conduct investigations on environmental cases faster and
thoroughly.

The result would produce "high quality dossiers for smoother
settlement of criminal cases at the next stage, prosecution and
the courts," Sarwono told the detectives.

He said later that administrative sanctions by local
governments have proved to be an effective alternative to court
settlement.

"If local administrations withdraw operation licenses (of
firms proved of polluting the environment) more often, this would
be effective enough in instilling compliance with environmental
rules," he said.

Sarwono said if the course could contribute to eradicating the
different perspectives that Dibyo mentioned, "police dossiers
would not have to go back and forth to the prosecutor or even
face rejection."

The different perspectives are mainly the basis of
prosecution. While the environmental law rules against any act of
pollution, prosecutors feel they must have material evidence such
as clinical symptoms to prove harm from pollution.

"Do we have to wait until people are paralyzed, for instance,
to prove that they were exposed to hazardous substances?" he
said.

"The main changes to the 1982 environmental law which are
being worked out, will be a stronger basis for prosecution
without the need for material evidence," he said.

One case under investigation is the case of PT Panji
Continental Pratama in Kapuk, Cengkareng district, West Jakarta.

Last month lethal fumes were allegedly produced by the
company's waste which was disposed of by a factory worker into
public gutters. One woman died and seven others were hospitalized
in the incident. According to Sarwono the factory could be
punished under the environmental law. Pollution charges against
the management of the briefcase and suitcase factory are still
being investigated.

A police source told The Jakarta Post that the fact that the
factory is in located in an industrial, not residential, area
raises difficulties in pressing charges against the factory's
management.

"This is one of the problems we hope to learn to solve through
this course," he said. (anr)