Legal system 'needs to change' to tackle environment dispute

Legal experts are seeking a revamp of Thailand's judicial infrastructure to handle environment disputes.

The experts said that despite having many environment laws, the Kingdom has yet to deliver justice as most lawsuits involve government agencies, which craft the policies and implement the plans.

Speaking at a seminar on how foreign countries have settled environmental disputes, Chulalongkorn University lecturer Dr Kanongnij Sribuaiam said the infrastructure would require cooperation from specialists in state agencies involved with natural resources, who would provide advice to environment judges in handling the complicated cases.

Kanongnij said New Zealand already had an Environment Court, which not only rules on environmental cases but also acts as a specialist institution.

"New Zealanders get a manual about the Environment Court's work and useful information about how to prevent and solve environmental problems," she said.

"The court also has many channels to handle the cases, including mediation."

At the seminar hosted by the Rabhibhanasak Research Institute, Kanongnij said Thailand had failed to enforce the existing laws to efficiently prevent or even to resolve cases relating to the environment.

"To date, the victims in such cases have not received proper remedy. Some cases have indeed dragged on for years," she said.  

Currently, all courts have an environment division to deal with legal disputes about the environment. However, local universities do not have courses about environment laws and the Institute of Legal Education of the Thai Bar does not test environment-law knowledge.

Winai Ruangsri, an apparitor at the Supreme Court's Environment Division, said alternativedispute resolution (ADR) should be a good method to adopt. The system saves time but the problem is government agencies refuse to go along with the ADR process, saying they have no decisionmaking power.

"In the United States, ADR reduces the burden on courts. This also means time and money saved. The number of pending legal cases also goes down," he said.

Winai said the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution is an independent agency that directly works on ADR. It will intervene before any party petitions the courts.

"In Thailand, very few cases go to ADR. When a government agency is involved in an environmental case, there is no talk of an out-of-court settlement," Winai pointed out.

Prof Yuichiro Tsuji, meanwhile, said ADR would be a good supplement to available systems for environmental cases. He praised the US ADR system as effective.

In the US, ADR is available in the rulemaking process. By providing the opportunities for the parties to participate in the policy making, the cost and burden of the administrative proceedings and the possibility of future dispute and conflict is lessened.