The current legislation provides for liability for environmental offenses committed in the use of natural reserves and environmental conservation. In accordance with laws and legal norms, they are singled out as independent offenses and crimes.
The concept
Environmental offenses or crimes are acts or omissions that are contrary to the established requirements of environmental law. In practice, this is expressed as a guilty illegal ecologically unsafe or harmful action that encroaches on established procedures in the field of environmental safety of the use of natural resources and environmental protection.
Environmental offenses are characterized by causing environmental harm in the implementation of unlawful acts.
The essence of the concept is reflected in the fact that the offender has taken any actions or omissions in relation to factors that have led to changes in the state of the environment, as well as the commission of offenses defined by environmental legislation.
The concept of environmental offense in its content defines certain unlawful actions for which punishment should follow. For such violations, in accordance with the law, criminal, administrative, disciplinary and civil liability are provided.
Types of environmental offenses
There are 3 types of environmental violations. It:
- Committed by the rightful owners of natural resources.
- Committed by nature users.
- Committed by persons who do not belong to any of these subgroups.
The next criterion is the state of the objects of nature, in relation to which environmental violations have been identified. It:
- Spoilage.
- Destruction.
- Causing damage.
According to the object of encroachment, types of environmental violations are distinguished into: mountain, land, water, forest.
Classification
If objects of an encroachment of a group of homogeneous offenses are distinguished as part of an offense, the following classification takes place:
- Illegal destruction and damage to natural resources, such as pollution, water clogging, destruction of forest areas, significant damage to agricultural land.
- Violation and neglect of the rules of transfer of ownership of natural resources related to the possibility of damage to the environment. Such violations include the introduction into operation of technical structures and enterprises that cause damage to the environment.
- Inaction or failure to comply with established rules for the conservation of natural resources.
- The deliberate use of various natural resources for their own selfish purposes. For example, the collection of wild rare plants.
Corpus delicti
The environmental offense includes the following actions:
- Clogging or depletion of groundwater and sources, causing harm to them, resulting in a change in their natural qualities. Especially if it carries a danger to the animal and vegetable surrounding environment.
- Violation of the norms of permissible emissions of various harmful substances into the atmosphere or improper operation of technical devices and structures, resulting in pollution or changes in air properties.
- Pollution of seas and water sources due to the discharge of substances and materials that have a harmful effect on human health or other living resources.
- Poisoning or contamination of land with harmful products of economic activity due to improper use and use of fertilizers or pesticides, as well as resulting from inaccurate transportation.
- Destruction or damage to a natural or artificially created forest fund as a result of improper or careless handling of fire or other sources of potential danger.
- Illegal deforestation or the destruction of certain species of their plant parts, committed in significant quantities, violating the general balance of the natural environment.
- Illegal hunting or extermination of animals, damage on a large scale, as well as with the use of vehicles or explosives, poisonous gases used in relation to the fauna of forests and reserves.
- Illegal fishing of fish or marine mammals, as well as vegetation, if they entail significant damage and are carried out using self-propelled vehicles, chemicals or explosives.
- Production of logging, the construction of illegal building structures (dams, bridges), if they entailed the mass death of fish and other creatures in the aquatic environment.
- The production of environmentally harmful waste, its improper transportation and storage, as well as disposal through the release into the environment.
- Illegal or inaccurate handling of radioactive materials.
- Violation of safety standards and sanitary rules, which are established by applicable federal legislation.
Responsibility for environmental offenses
The rules established by applicable law regarding the prevention, detection and suppression of violations in the field of nature conservation are also a way of control. Responsibility for committing environmental offenses is assigned in the course of legal proceedings or can be determined by the controlling services.
Environmental control It is produced not only by the state and is divided into several types:
- State.
- Industrial.
- Public.
- Municipal.
- General
Each of these types of control is carried out in order to:
- Observations by individuals and legal entities on compliance with environmental legislation and its norms.
- Compliance with all provided requirements and regulatory documents.
- Ensuring environmental safety and security of the natural environment.
Thus, environmental supervision is one of the means of managing the protection of the natural environment and:
- carried out by special bodies and persons of the environmental inspection on behalf of the state;
- is supra-and extra-departmental in nature;
- is one of the functions of environmental governance of the state;
- associated with the application of various measures of administrative coercion.
Types of liability for environmental offenses
State control is carried out on the basis of the legal framework by special state bodies having authority and called upon to provide regular and systematic environmental supervision.
Production control is carried out with the aim of ensuring the execution of business processes or production activities, as well as various measures aimed at protecting the natural environment and the rational use of its resources. Business entities provide information about the organization to the executive authorities, which conduct regular checks in the manner prescribed by law.Such control is carried out by the environmental service of the legal entity, which operates exactly in accordance with the letter of the law and whose function is to eliminate the negative consequences of the organization’s production activities. Criminal or administrative is applied to the company and its managers, and disciplinary liability for environmental offenses is applied to employees.
Municipal control is carried out in the territory entrusted by local self-government bodies in the manner prescribed by law, in accordance with regulatory legal acts.
Legal liability
Types of liability for environmental offenses: disciplinary, administrative or material, as well as in the case of crimes - criminal. Attraction to any type of such liability does not exempt the subject from compensation for harm and other types of monetary penalties and compensations.
Subjects brought to criminal, disciplinary and material liability can only be individuals. Whereas administrative liability for environmental offenses, as well as civil law, occurs for individuals and legal entities.
Under current law, persons who have reached the age of 16 may be held liable. In accordance with civil proceedings, minors have limited liability from 15 to 18 years. And on coming of age - full.
Criminal liability for environmental offenses occurs in the event of a completed crime and cannot be awarded for attempting to commit it or preparing it, as well as attempted crime, if it was not finished.
List of crimes
In accordance with the Criminal Code, such environmental crimes are punishable:
- Violation of the rules for the safe use of microbiological agents or toxins that have caused harm to human health, the spread of various epidemics, as well as serious consequences, including the onset of human death.
- Deviation from the norms of veterinary activity, entailing the spread of epizootics or other grave consequences that are epidemic in nature and encompassing entire livestock in large territorial areas.
- Violation of the rules that are established in the protection of fish stocks, which entailed the mass death of a population of fish or other aquatic creatures, as well as the significant destruction of their feed stocks.
- Destruction of habitats of animals and organisms that are listed in the Red Book.
- Violation of the established regime of territories or objects under protection, and causing substantial damage to these natural resources.
- Violation of the established rules as a result of carrying out production activities or performing other works that entailed a change in the radiation level and damage to human health or the mass destruction of populations of animals and other organisms.
- Violation of the methods and rules of storage, disposal of harmful compounds and waste that can pose a threat to people or the environment and lead to pollution and poisoning, causing harm to human health or leading to mass destruction of animals. And also if they were committed in areas with an environmental emergency or disaster and resulted in the death of a person or mass epidemics.
- Pollution of water resources, which caused damage to fish stocks, fauna and flora, as well as to nearby forest or economic land, especially if it was harmful to human health or death.
- Atmospheric pollution by the release of toxic substances into the air, resulting in serious consequences.
- Damage to the land, which caused significant damage to natural resources, animals and people living in these territories.
- Violation of the established rules for the protection and use of the bowels of the earth, including illegal extraction of minerals or violation of the rules for their use or construction, causing irreversible damage to the environment.
- Illegal hunting aimed at causing major damage or extermination of populations of animals, birds, as well as those produced on the territory of nature reserves or sanctuaries.
- Illegal felling of trees and shrubs, leading to the extinction or threat of extinction of certain species.
- Destruction of forest plantations and massifs as a result of careless use of fire.
Offense of administrative responsibility
Administrative liability for environmental offenses occurs in accordance with the commission of unlawful acts intentionally or through negligence.
Administrative offenders are punished by fines, warnings, confiscation, seizure of tools and deprivation of special rights of individuals to carry out a certain type of activity, in connection with which damage was caused.
The list of violations is fully consistent with criminal offenses with the difference that administrative environmental violations did not harm human health or did not lead to the destruction of plant and animal resources, but, nevertheless, caused significant damage or were aimed at achieving certain criminal offenses, but were not fully implemented.
Environmental assessment
To identify and establish violations and crimes, an environmental impact assessment is created, which is aimed at preventing and identifying adverse environmental impacts. Legal liability for environmental violations arises from the results of its implementation.
State expertise can only be performed by the federal executive branch. All types of urban planning documentation of various projects, regardless of their purpose and application, must undergo a mandatory environmental review, in accordance with paragraphs of the federal law "On Environmental Expertise". In case of discrepancies, legal liability for environmental violations occurs.
Examination of the environmental situation is based on the principles of:
- Identification of potential environmental hazards for the environment from any intended economic and other activities.
- Obligations of the examination prior to making decisions on the construction and implementation of the project to which it is directed.
- The complexity of assessing interactions or the consequences for nature from economic or other activities.
- Obligations of accounting for the requirements provided during the environmental impact assessment, and their implementation.
- Reliability and completeness of the information provided.
- Independence of expert opinion on environmental impact assessment.
- The scientific accuracy and validity of the conclusions made and the legitimacy of the conclusions based on the results of the environmental review.
- Publicity of the results.
- Responsibilities of the participants of the examination for its organization and high-quality execution.
Legal liability for environmental offenses may arise as a result of the conclusion of an examination in case of violations of existing norms and rules. Depending on what kind of violations were committed, the method and type of liability to be awarded is determined.
Disciplinary responsibility for environmental offenses is provided in the form of a severe reprimand, comments in a private matter. As well as the dismissal of an official or employee of the organization.
The issues of preserving the environment, as well as flora and fauna, should be the concern not only of regulatory authorities, but also of each person individually. This is especially true of business facilities and enterprises operating in the territories entrusted. Caring for the environment is not limited to caring for your own garden. During the implementation of our professional activities, we should never forget that, while preserving the environment, we give the future to our children.
