Government to beef up environment law

Government to beef up environment law

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is preparing an integrated team to better
investigate and prosecute environment-related offenses, to avoid
previous cases where defendants were charged with lenient
indictments.

The team, proposed by the office of the State Ministry for the
Environment and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law
(ICEL), will include police, the prosecutors' office,
environmental consultants, and officials from related government
institutions, such as the Ministry of Forestry.

"My office, as one of its initiators, is of course fully
supportive of the establishment of such a team, and is prepared
to act as its coordinator," said State Minister for the
Environment Nabiel Makarim on Monday, on the sidelines of a
seminar on the revision of Law No.23/1997 on the environment.

ICEL senior consultant Achmad Santosa said besides ensuring
that environment-related cases would be better handled, the team
is also expected to help build a unified stance among concerned
government institutions.

He added that more efficient cooperation and supervision among
the institutions was also expected.

"The public would also have more access to participate in the
supervision, as experts on the environment are included in the
team," said Achmad.

Achmad, however, admitted that the new arrangement was still
prone to collusion but stressed that such a practice could be
minimized during the recruitment process.

"The coordinator of the team will tightly screen the
candidates from each institution for integrity, besides
capability," said Achmad, adding that the blueprint for the
establishment of the team would hopefully be ready in the coming
three months.

Achmad also said that ICEL had proposed that the Supreme Court
provide training for judges on environmental laws, and suggested
that ad hoc trials be established for environmental cases.

Previously, Chief Justice Bagir Manan also called for better
cooperation between police, prosecutors' offices and courts for
the thorough processing of environment-related cases.

He also mentioned that his office had trained about 850 judges
on environmental laws, and on how to handle environment-related
cases, while acknowledging that about 400 prosecutors had also
undergone similar training.

Bagir, however, admitted that the number of trained judges was
still far from the ideal, whereby one trained judge would be
placed in each court house in the country.