Yvonne Ba­boolal

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion (EC), es­tab­lished 13 years ago as a su­pe­ri­or Caribbean en­vi­ron­men­tal court, was giv­en a $7 mil­lion 2013 bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion, but there is no com­mis­sion­er sit­ting on it and no cas­es are be­ing heard.The EC, en­dowed with the same pow­ers as the High Court, was set up to hear and make judg­ments on ap­peals of an en­vi­ron­men­tal na­ture.

A well-placed gov­ern­ment source said the terms of the four sit­ting com­mis­sion­ers end­ed in De­cem­ber and Jan­u­ary but no ap­point­ments have been made since. Ac­cord­ing to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act, six com­mis­sion­ers are to be ap­point­ed on the com­mis­sion. All are to be at­tor­neys.The source could fur­nish no rea­son why the com­mis­sion was short of two com­mis­sion­ers.

Fur­ther, the act says no com­mis­sion­er should be ap­point­ed for more than three years. But the last chair­man, for­mer In­dus­tri­al Court judge San­dra Paul, has been in the po­si­tion since around 2004, some nine years."Some ap­point­ments just con­tin­ue," the source said.For­mer judge In­di­ra Ram­rek­ers­ingh was list­ed on the com­mis­sion's Web site as the last deputy chair­man and the names of two com­mis­sion­ers were giv­en as: Dr Eu­gene C Lau­rent and Roger deLa­cy Car­ring­ton.

"The com­mis­sion has no pow­er to ap­point com­mis­sion­ers...That is a mat­ter for the ex­ec­u­tive," the source said."The ex­ec­u­tive makes ap­point­ments and the pres­i­dent gives the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment."We be­lieve they are in the process of get­ting things go­ing."In the mean­time, no cas­es are be­ing heard."Mat­ters are not be­ing heard since there are no com­mis­sion­ers," the source stat­ed.

The EC falls un­der the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al but it is a su­pe­ri­or court of record which on­ly us­es the AG's of­fice as a con­duit for Cab­i­net min­utes, the T&T Guardian was told.At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, asked about the lack of com­mis­sion­ers, said a new board would be ap­point­ed this month.Ac­cord­ing to the draft es­ti­mates of pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture put out by the Gov­ern­ment, $7 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to the com­mis­sion this year, an in­crease from last's year al­lo­ca­tion.

"The com­mis­sion is re­lo­cat­ing so it got more mon­ey," the source ex­plained.At present, the com­mis­sion is housed in the Tel­ly Paul Build­ing at the cor­ner of St Vin­cent and New Streets, Port-of-Spain."The com­mis­sion has to pay rent, salaries, and foot the bill for re­pairs and san­i­ta­tion," the source said.There are 24 mem­bers of staff at the com­mis­sion.In the mean­time, mem­bers of the pub­lic are re­port­ed­ly fil­ing mat­ters at the com­mis­sion.

"Mem­bers of the pub­lic can still file mat­ters and when the new com­mis­sion is ap­point­ed it will set hear­ing dates," the source said.Asked if mem­bers of the pub­lic were, in fact, fil­ing mat­ters, the source replied, "Yes."And what kind of mat­ters are those?"All kinds of en­vi­ron­men­tal mat­ters, many of them deal­ing with noise," was the re­ply.

The source said the com­mis­sion has heard and made judg­ments on sev­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal mat­ters in its 13-year ex­is­tence. It was de­signed to hear mat­ters of an ap­peal na­ture from pri­vate cit­i­zens and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.Its Web site lists on­ly four, how­ev­er."The com­mis­sion's Web site needs up­dat­ing. Its year­book has many more judg­ments record­ed," the source said.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, on­ly one case ever went through full tri­al, that of Tal­is­man Pe­tro­le­um Ltd ver­sus the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty. The Web site lists this as be­ing heard in 2002.The source said many mat­ters are set­tled by Al­ter­na­tive Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion, a me­di­a­tion process."The com­mis­sion is ex­treme­ly use­ful and nec­es­sary," the source said."It is the pre­mier en­vi­ron­men­tal court in the Caribbean. There is no oth­er court in the Caribbean that deals with en­vi­ron­men­tal mat­ters."