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52COMPARATIVE LAW RESEARCH
SYSTEM OF STATE ADMINISTRATION BODIES IN CHARGE OF ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION IN REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2014.3.6
Elen Akopova, master of law, Chair of Law of Customs, Finance and Ecolaw, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Russian abbreviation KazNU), Almaty, e-mail: [email protected].
Abstract. On the basis of corpus of terms and concepts framed by the author,
the article examines directions of the state environmental policy in Republic of Kazakhstan. The goal of ecopolitics is to make provisions for rational nature management and protection of environment. The author considers division of specific authorities in the context of general policy between agencies of the state power, including legislative and executive branches. Codified and other regulatory legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan, international legal acts, and law enforcement practices served as sources for the present article. The work has a comparative legal effect, since it introduces into academic circulation new sources of state with regard to the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Keywords: agencies of state administration, environment protection, functions
of state administration, environmental management, rational use of nature, ecology, preservation of natural habitat, ecolaw, Ecological Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
State administration in the field of ecology should be understood as an executive function of the corresponding state agency aimed at establishing basis for rational nature management and preservation of natural habitat.
Scope of state environmental management and preservation of natural habitat is governed by public interests and the state ecological policy. Aimed at ensuring rational use of nature and creation of friendly natural environment, this policy consists of improving interactions between the society and nature.
The following actions form the basis of the state policy:
- taking socioeconomic, ecological and other measures to support health of the population;
- developing models of rational nature management with regard to specific features of a certain region;
- overcoming influence of droughts and desertification;
- keeping balance between usage and conservation of biological diversity;
- harmonious exploitation and conservation of land resources;
- developing ecological safety.
The state accomplishes the given set of goals in the area of environment conservation through its administration agencies of general power and special competence.
The state agencies of general power include the President, Parliament, Government, local representative agencies.
Representative agencies are appointed to act a leading role in environment conservancy and rational nature management. The Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan is in charge of rule-making, which includes providing for legislative basis of the state environmental policy by specifying general directions of activities for the executive branch. This is why representative authorities do not participate directly in the law enforcement process. Their designation is to create the ecolaw, i.e. the legal base, which should establish a control base for environment protection and rational nature management.
The leading role in the law enforcement process is played by executive authorities and executive officers. The executive branch is in fact represented by a complex and ramified system of agencies. The efficiency level of the mechanism designed to apply the environmental law becomes apparent in this very system of agencies. Currently, the executive branch in the Republic of Kazakhstan (hereinafter referred to as the RK) is growing stronger, therefore the President plays a key role in the mechanism of enforcing law.
Presidential powers with regard to administering environment conservancy are sufficiently wide. He ratifies government programmes, issues decrees, acts and orders that are legally binding across all the regions of the Republic. Since the institution of presidency was established, there have been adopted more than one hundred of Presidential Decrees and Acts on questions of environment conservancy and rational nature management.
In order to improve structure of administration agencies in charge of environment protection and ensuring rational use of nature in the Republic of Kazakhstan, the President ordered to form a unified vertical executive establishment of state administrative agencies, which would act at the level of the Republic, its regions and districts and would control preservation and rehabilitation of the environment, reproduction and rational use of nature.
Scope of the general power of the government in the area of environment conservancy and rational nature management is specified by the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and by the Presidential Edict of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a force of a constitutional law «About the Government» dated 18 December, 1995.
The government activity includes identifying and solving paramount general problems and establishing main directions in the given field, developing and implementing the state ecological programme, determining environmental standards and limitations with regard to use of natural resources. The content of the given authorities constitute the essence of state ecological activity. Normative
acts issued by the government of Kazakhstan have a considerable significance in regulating ecological matters.
In recent years there have been passed and put in force the Ecological Code of laws of the RK, the Law on Underground Resources and Subsoil Use: there have been amended Forest, Land and Water Codes of the RK. The government also ratified the sectorial programme «Jhasyl Damu» (the name in the Kazakh language) for the period from 2010 to 2014.
The system of environmental law comprises two subsystems: one with regard to conservation of nature, another - to natural resources. Before 2007 the former subsystem incorporated such laws as the «Environment Protection Act of the RK», «Ecological Expertise Act of the RK», etc. The latter subsystem still incorporates the Land Code, Forest Code, Water Code, etc.
Now the framework laws of the subsystem concerning conservation of nature are replaced with the Ecological Code of Laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated 09.01.2007 No 212-3. The Ecological Code of Laws was developed by staff of the legal department of the Ministry of Environment, legal scholars and legal advisers, working at large enterprises of Kazakhstan.
The content of the Ecological Code of Laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan is to represent the complicated structure of laws and regulations on natural resources, where legal relations with regard to use and protection of nature submit to the chief condition, i.e. to preserving the quality of nature. It is the Ecological Code of Laws that should set norms concerning ecological conditions of using land, mineral resources, forests, which will be specified in corresponding laws, namely, the laws «On Land», «On Subsurface Resources», «On Forests», etc. The Ecological Code of Laws must secure such a system of state administration, where the Ministry of Ecology and Biological Resources would act as the coordinating organ for Ministries engaged in using natural resources; in addition, it would report not to the Government, but directly to the Parliament of the Republic. The key measure to be taken to solve ecological problems in a more specified mode, would be allocating from the state budget a special fund for making environmental payments, which would be placed under supervision of the Ministry of Ecology and Biological Resources.
The Government participates not only in making norms and regulations, it also takes direct part in environment protection activities. Under the government there functioned the Committee on Environmental Conservation and Rational Use of Nature, established on 4 February, 1983 for systematic monitoring all activities conducted in the field of environment conservancy, and also for coordinating activities of ministries, executive departments, and public organisations working in the field. All these organisations were involved not only in protection of environment; they also interacted with international ecological organisations and were in charge of matters within their competence.
State agencies with special competence, acting under special government regulations or separately adopted governmental acts, are specially entitled to perform corresponding nature conservation functions.
By the scope and specific features of their competences the state agencies are divided into three groups: interindustry, sectorial and functional ones.
Interindustry agencies perform a complex of nature-oriented tasks. The Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Kazakhstan (hereinafter referred to as
the ME of the RK) belongs to this group. By its functions, the Ministry has a number of specific features. The first one is its complex approach to exercising their control and inspection functions. The second is that the Ministry of Environment is an economic ministry, which means it directly administers use of natural resources. This implies the third feature, namely, that the function of the state ecological control goes along with management of exploitation of natural resources, and this is the way it should be.
The said functions of the ME of the RK are distributed between executive departments, i.e. Ministerial Committees, which include:
1. the Committee on Environmental Regulation and Control;
2. the Committee on Forestry and Game Husbandry;
3. the Committee on Fishing Industry;
4. the Committee on Water Resources.
The legal status of the Ministry is determined by its functions which are: coordination, regulation, control and inspection, licensing (granting permits), enabling work of information systems, conducting international operations. Specially authorised agencies, as well as all other ministries and departments associated with use of natural resources and environmental impacts, are involved in coordinating activities aimed at protection of natural objects.
Within the framework of environmental management, the ME of the RK adopts norms and rules of use of natural resources, and rules of conducting such economic activities that influence the environment. These norms and rules are binding for all users of natural resources, irrespective of their departmental identity and forms of ownership.
Coordination is closely related to the regulatory function, in the course of performing which the ME issues normative acts on protection and harmonious exploitation of the natural habitat. The said acts are binding for all nature-protective bodies and users of natural resources.
The control and inspection activity of the Ministry is performed directly by its staff or through territorial offices. This work mainly consists in granting permits for ecosystem exploitation, in carrying out the State Environmental Expertise, in governing and running activities with regard to management and research concerning reserves of the Republic.
Part of the control and inspection function of the Ministry is its licensing function. In the context of performing this function and within its competence, the ME of the RK and its agencies perform the following activities:
- grant permits for release of pollutants, discharge of harmful substances, underground disposal of harmful substances, exploitation of the vegetable world and the animal world;
- determine normative standards, limitations, and conditions of using natural resources, develop standards for regulating environmental activity.
The information function takes an important place in work of the Ministry. In association with other agencies the ME ensures the functioning of ecological information systems. The ME of the RK is obliged to give timely and truthful information about environmental conditions and changes of the environment under the influence of economic activity. The Ministry, being the main body in charge of complex preservation of the natural habitat, plays a leading role in administering protection of natural reserves, making provisions for ecological
education, developing international cooperation in the area of environment protection and use of natural resources. The listed functions are assigned to its subordinate organisation - the Republican State Enterprise «Environmental Safety Information Analysis Centre of the Republic of Kazakhstan».
The Republican State Enterprise (hereinafter referred to as RSE) «Environmental Safety Information Analysis Center» works to create a uniform integrated data storage; keeping it up to date implies constant adding up systematised information on environmental safety and use of natural resources.
The RSE «Environmental Safety Information Analysis Center» comprises the following structural departments that accumulate statistical information:
- Ecological Information Centre;
- Aarhus Centre.
The Ecological Information Centre was created as part of the RSE «Environmental Safety Information Analysis Center» in compliance with the Order of the ME of the RK dated 12 September, No 264-n. In the Ecological Information Centre there remain deposited National Environmental Reports that present the state of environment in the RK from 2004 to 2008, reports on research in the area of environmental safety over a period of 2004 - 2008, and normative legal documents. The ecological information is stored in hard copy and in electronic format. Experts of the institution perform continuous monitoring with regard to publication of republican and international instructive, normative-methodological and legislative documents in the area of environmental safety, use of natural resources, labour protection, health, ecological and industrial safety, emergency conditions.
By Law dated 23 October, 2000 No 92-II the Republic of Kazakstan ratified the Aarhus Convention. The RSE «Environmental Safety Information Analysis
Center» is assigned as the executive organ in charge of implementing the Aarhus Convention. For that matter, on the basis of the RSE «Environmental Safety Information Analysis Centre» there was established the Aarhus Centre. Main objectives of the Centre are as follows:
- to secure the right of the public to the timely receiving of trustworthy and complete information about the state of environment, and about such an activity being planned and performed that can significantly influence the environment;
- to establish interconnections between public and state agencies;
- to render practical assistance to government agencies and civil servants in their activity aimed at fulfilling obligations concerning implementation of provisions of the Convention;
- to provide the general public for environmental education, awareness-building with regard to environmental issues;
- to render assistance in what concerns enabling the general public to participate in decision making and to gain access to justice on the environment-related matters;
- to analyse international experience and develop international cooperation aimed at implementing provisions of the Aarhus Convention.
Other subordinate organisations of the ME are as follows:
The Joint-Stock Company (hereafter JSC) «Kazaeroservice», the only specialised enterprise in the Republic of Kazakhstan providing for meteorological
support for civil aviation.
The JSC «Jhasyl Damu», formerly the RSE «Kazakh Research Institute of Ecology and Climate», which underwent reorganisation in July 2012. The enterprise is responsible for dealing with unpossessed hazardous waste that was transferred into republican ownership upon court orders. It also maintains the Register of Carbonic Quotas, which is part of the national trading system engaged in trading in carbonic quotas according to the Ecological Code of Laws of the RK.
JSC Scientific-Production Association «Eurasian Centre of Water». In its work the Association takes an umbrella approach to the matters of research and conservation with regard to water resources, which includes:
- ecological justification of feasibility for large break-through projects in the area of water resources;
- academic justification and support for creating trans-border zones of sustainable development;
- scientific research on regular patterns in formation and predictive modeling tendencies with regard to changes of cubature and quality of water resources due to intensification of economic activity in water basins of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Eurasian Continent in the context of the global climate change;
- analysis of the development of the water economic sector in countries located on the Continent;
- organisation and implementation of scientific research in the area of physics, chemistry and physiology of water;
- development of up-to-date standards of drinking water quality that would correspond to physiological needs of the human organism;
- academic justification and introduction of the rehabilitation system for population of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the basis of using clinico-preventive properties of water, including construction of the chain of recreational objects.
The RSE «Kazgiromet» conducts environmental quality monitoring along the following lines:
- monitoring of the atmosphere air;
- condition monitoring of atmospheric rainfall and snow cover;
- monitoring of the qualitative condition of surface waters;
- condition monitoring of soils;
- radiation monitoring;
- monitoring of international watercourses;
- baseline monitoring.
State agencies of special competence exercising sectorial management functions with regard to environment conservancy and rational use of nature, also include state administration bodies that work in the area of land relations, protection of subsoil use, water resources and agriculture.
Sectorial management in the area of environment conservancy and, primarily, use of natural resources is generally structured according to the object under supervision. Rights and obligations of state agencies engaged in managing natural resources are specified by legislative acts and by ratified government provisions that regulate activity of such agencies. In their activity these agencies must obey the normative acts issued by the ME of the RK, since they are binding
on all environmental authorities and users of natural resources.
The group of functional agencies comprises the Ministry of Internal Affairs (hereafter MIA of the RK), Customs Committee, the Emergency Situations Ministry (hereafter ESM of the RK), Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Committee on Geology and Subsoil Use. These agencies fulfill one or more contiguous functions with regard to all natural objects. For example, the MIA of the RK occupies a special place among ecological control and monitoring state agencies: it secures protection of the atmosphere air from adverse effects of pollution produced by vehicles, its extradepartmental militia guards natural objects, fights to ensure observance of sanitary rules, and renders assistance in matters connected with environmental protection.
Administration of Environmental and Veterinary Police serves as the MIA of the RK's major source of information on questions concerning environmental activities. The sphere of activities of the Administration covers the following matters:
- fighting against environmental offences;
- conserving biological diversity in the vegetable and animal worlds, solving problems in the fight against poaching;
- arranging and carrying out anti-epizootic measures in case there appears a
threat or actual contraction of acute infectious diseases of the farm livestock.
Fundamental statistical factors of the MIA of the RK in the area of
environmental safety are as follows:
- number of detected infringements of the environmental legislation;
- number of initiated criminal cases;
- number of administrative protocols;
- records of exempt material evidences;
- assessment of damage caused by poaching and illegal deforestation.
The Customs Committee executes environmental functions by taking measures aimed at fighting against illegal export of raw materials, animals and plants, enlisted in the Red Book (the endangered-species list), as well as against illegal import of such goods that present ecological hazard for human beings and the natural habitat.
The ESM of the RK operates in the following areas of ecological control:
- state control over emergency conditions and industrial safety;
- accidents and accidental occurrences connected with motor-vehicle transport;
- accidents and accidental occurrences connected with railway transport;
- accidents and incidents connected with air transport and launching space vehicles;
- fires;
- blasts of gas;
- explosions and detecting weapons, technogenic accidents;
- industrial accidents;
- accidents with release of superpotent poisonous and radioactive substances;
- accidents in life-support and survival systems;
- hydrometeorological and geological dangerous phenomena (freshets, floods, landslides, windstorms, natural fires);
- dangerous infectious diseases of people and animals;
- earthquakes;
- carrying out rescue operations.
The Committee on Geology and Subsoil Use, among other tasks that are assigned to it according to its status, organises and carries out state mines inspection in order to check compliance with directions for use of subsurface resources, safety conduct of operations, prevention and elimination of their adverse effects on the population, environment, national economy. The scope of work of the Committee on Geology and Subsoil Use operating under the Ministry of Industry and Innovative Technologies of the RK also includes:
- providing for automated collecting, keeping, processing and offering for use numerical information on operative conditions of subsurface resources and subsoil use;
- maintaining the data bank necessary to forecast details of deposits, carry out geological analysis of subsurface resources, justify state and investment programmes connected with geological analysis and field development;
- ensuring the data base necessary for state agencies to make decisions in the area of subsurface use;
- monitoring of subsoil use;
- ensuring functioning of the noosphere, i.e. the integrated information space that unites subsoil users and the state administration agencies operating in the area of subsurface use.
Questions concerning environment pollution in the course of exploration and production of natural fossil minerals are transferred into the ME of the RK.
Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan is engaged in collecting and processing the statistical information that reflects different factors of the medico-demographic situation in the RK, grouped by regions.
Within the competence of local governments called maslikhats there lays dealing with serious matters that affect ecological situation in the region, district, and town. Local representative bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan have a right to adopt obligatory rules, for breaching which the guilty party bears administrative responsibility. The rules concern protection and maintenance of the land, forests, water resources, unique objects of nature; sanitary purification of territories, maintenance and protection of the green belt; building development of settlements. Such rules belong to a category of ecological rules, and according to the legislation in force, if they are violated, it carries administrative responsibility. The rules adopted by maslikhats must not contradict the legislation in force.
Thus, only assessment of the condition of the natural habitat and environmental subdivision into districts in the Republic of Kazakhstan allows to understand the level of efficiency of the state environmental control under the existing system of distributing powers and responsibilities.
Besides, we can draw a conclusion that environment protection in Republic of Kazakhstan involves a considerable number of state special authorised agencies that curate separate questions in the given area. The ME of RK, being the central organ, fails to coordinate activities of other ministries and has the same subordination status. Presumably, the issue in question can be settled by creating the Ecological Council under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and in this case the work performed by the state in the area of environment protection will be more effective.
References
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