Rising cases based on environmental pollution, says Reddy

THERE is an increasing trend in the number of cases based on environmental pollution, ecological destruction and conflicts over natural resources coming up before the courts.

Minister for Environment Dr Mahendra Reddy said in most of these cases, there was a need for natural scientific expertise as an essential input to inform judicial decision-making.

According to Dr Reddy these cases require expertise at a high level of scientific and technical sophistication.

“Moreover, any orders passed by the authorities under the relevant Environment and Pollution Act are immediately questioned by the activities in courts. Those proceedings take several years to conclude. Often interim orders are granted which effectively disables the authorities from ensuring the implementation of their orders,” he said.

For this reason, he stressed the need to set up an environment court to cut down delays which were hindering the implementation of environmental laws in Fiji.

While addressing the Inaugural IUCN Oceania Environmental Law virtual conference yesterday morning, Dr Reddy said another challenge facing small island states was that the small number of large corporate companies were at times at odds with internal and external stakeholders.

“Those strongly advocating the shareholder theory, tend to be the ones to compromise the long-term dimension of the environment in pursuit of the company’s interest. The shareholder theory states that the corporation should serve the interests of shareholders only. Noting possible liabilities, the corporation obtains indemnity cover for the board.”

Dr Reddy said the challenge for them was how they graduated corporate companies to adopt stakeholder theory which advocated service larger society.

“So here, the country’s overarching business legislation comes in handy. The law must hold the board and employees accountable for harmful sideeffects of corporate conduct. The Government of Fiji four years ago revised its Companies Act to ensure that the board and employees of the company can be held accountable,” he said.

“While we undertake these changes as alluded to earlier on, we must also ensure that we have experts on our bench and also outside, both amongst the lawyers and experts, who can understand it and deal with these matters expeditiously.”

Dr Reddy stated that any lawmaking and enforcement must accompany the buy-in by key stakeholders.

“In this respect, Chambers of Commerce for various Municipalities, Employer’s Federations, Fiji Institute of Accountants Congress, the epic body of financial managers of various firms throughout Fiji must all rally behind a behavioural change to protect our environment while business continues to grow.”