Joint teams to speed up response to environmental destruction
Tony Hotland, Jakarta
Acknowledging the flaws in law enforcement for environmental crimes, the government has established a joint team of environmental experts, police officers and state prosecutors to speed up and improve the investigations into such crimes.
"By creating a team that works under the same roof, we hope that they will have a common understanding when identifying environmental crimes and that the legal steps in such cases can be accelerated," State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim said on Friday after signing an agreement on the formation of the team with National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar and Attorney General M.A. Rachman.
The team will have the authority to investigate and prosecute those suspected of being involved in environmental crimes, without having to go through the bureaucratic procedures at the police and prosecutors' offices.
Nabiel cited examples of case files being submitted to prosecutors' offices only to be returned due to inadequate evidence
"Having experts, police and prosecutors in the same office will hopefully give each of them a more open view, and therefore help establish a common understanding when dealing with environmental cases," Nabiel said.
Da'i said one of the reasons environmental crimes were difficult to prosecute was because they were so dissimilar from conventional crimes.
"It requires a scientific investigation, which many law enforcers have no idea about. Furthermore, most environmental crimes have no immediate impact, making them harder to prove," he said.
The team, to be headquartered at the Office of the State Minister for the Environment, will consist of five groups. Each group will have a police officer, a prosecutor, a civil investigator, an environmental expert and a crime scene expert.
They will focus their work on 15 provinces where environmental destruction is considered to be the most prevalent.
"They will coordinate with us here (in Jakarta) to report on environmental cases. They were trained together here about six months ago on environmental issues," he said.
According to the office of the state minister, 48 environmental cases had been brought to court since 2001. Four cases have been appealed to the Supreme Court, four are being appealed at a high court, while the rest are still being tried.
The state minister has also proposed to the Supreme Court that 12 judges be trained and assigned to preside over environmental cases in the courts.
Environmental destruction, including illegal logging and the intentional setting of forest fires, has been blamed for many of the natural disasters that have killed thousands of people and destroyed thousands of homes around the country over the past few years.
The Ministry of Forestry plans to issue a regulation in lieu of law to set up a special team with the authority to fight illegal logging.