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)