Civil-legal consideration of circumstances for exerting citizenship rights on the environment

Subject Areas : environmental management

Maryam Pir ¹ , Nasser Ghasemy ²

1 - Environment of Law Department, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Environment of Law Department, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2006-11-11 Accepted : 2007-09-12 Published : 2009-09-23

Keywords: environmental, Citizen’s rights, specialty courts, final dictums,

Abstract :

According to the Iranian law, citizenship right is a privilege given to the country’s members within its borders. However, from an environmental point of view, such privilege cannot be confined to borders because environment goes beyond the countries’ borderlines.  A person who is the agent of pollution is considered as one who is against the environmental laws. Therefore, there should be special courts in the field of environment to act as an obstacle to such offences. The review of 168 files at two branches of the environment’s special court revealed that 10 percent of them ended in a guilt dictum and 90 percent in a forbiddance dictum (out of 4 final dictums). As it can be seen, the percentage of forbiddance dictum is so high. On the one hand, it indicates that few crimes have been committed and on the other hand it shows that we just witness the damages inflicted upon the environment and do nothing.   The important thing which should not be forgotten is that the prevention of environmental damages is much less costly than restoring it. Therefore, citizens should cooperate with the government and the government should train the citizens (because it is people’s right to know). When people understand the situation, they will think about it and try to solve the problems themselves.