Class action seen as way forward for environmental victims

"We face giants. It is difficult for us to beat them under the current legal system which does not provide equal access to justice," said Pairoj Pholphet, from NGO Cord, a network of non-government organisations for rural development.

He was speaking at a recent seminar on problems on law enforcement for rehabilitating polluted environments and compensation for the victims.

Chulalongkorn University's Social Research Institute and EnLaw, a non-profit legal organisation, held the seminar not long after the Central Administration Court ordered the Pollution Control Department to compensate 22 victims of lead contamination in Klity Creek.

According to the court, the major part of the Bt33,783 compensation each defendant received was for food they had to pay for while the case was in court. They had asked for Bt700 per month. The court halved it.

The villagers, all minority Karen living in Kanchanaburi, have suffered for more than a decade as Klity Creek has been contaminated with lead released from Lead Concentrated, a company with a registered capital of Bt30 million and run by an influential figure from Kanchanaburi.

"The case demonstrated that the compensation was based on the social and economic status of the plaintiffs. If the plaintiffs are poor they get less, which never hurts the defendants who are often big corporations. We must reconsider whether the current system can make big companies afraid of polluting the environment," said Amnart Netyasupa.

Though an attorney in the Office of the Attorney-General, Amnart said he was speaking on his own account, and said the legal process should be able to charge the executive committee of a corporation that has polluted the environment, as currently only the company can be found guilty.

Amnart said the so-called class-action system, which allows representatives to precede with a lawsuit for large numbers of people involved in the cases, should be applied to Thailand.

"Environmental problems can cause a huge impact on many people over a vast area, and we know that not all the victims have access to justice. We should allow representative action," he said.

The Klity Creek villagers are not alone. Farmers in the Taw area of Tak province have high levels of cadmium in their blood. The Agriculture Ministry asked them not to grow rice, due to cadmium contamination in the soil, and though the source is still unknown, villagers believe it may be from the nearby zinc mines of Padaeng Industry and Tak Mining. Padaeng Industry is a leading mining company with registered capital of Bt2.26 billion.

People in Map Ta Phut, Rayong, have lived with air pollution for over 14 years as their community is dominated by petrochemical factories. Many have suffered from leukaemia and other cancers believed to have links to the industry.

"To fight against the giants, we have to empower the people," Pairoj said.

Pairoj and other legal experts are now seeking to amend the 1992 Environmental Protection Act and are also drawing up a bill to establish an independent organisation to protect the environment and to deal with environmental pollution cases as mentioned in the Constitution. He expects the draft of the bill will be presented to Parliament together with 10,000 signatures of support by the end of next month.

He hopes that with the new legal tool, David will once again beat Goliath.