Ministry of Environment and Environmental Supervision Department Appeal Court Decision

The Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Supervision (DES) have appealed to the Appeals Court against a decision that partially satisfied the lawsuit of Rustavi citizens regarding air pollution.

The agencies oppose three main demands:

Ensure that enterprises located in Rustavi operate within the framework of legal requirements, specifically: all enterprises that are required by law to operate with air-dust trapping and continuous instrumental self-monitoring systems for harmful substances should function with air-dust trapping and continuous instrumental self-monitoring systems for emissions of harmful substances into the air.

According to them, they already require this from enterprises. However, we believe that the control is insufficient and ineffective. Additionally, the lawsuit demand is not for these agencies to provide filters and self-monitoring systems to enterprises, but rather to strengthen control to ensure that enterprises definitely install filters and self-monitoring systems.

The appeal also concerns the requirement to publish self-monitoring results online. The agencies argue that this may violate the rights of enterprises.

The civil movement “Gavigudet” has spoken with numerous enterprises, and most of them have no problem with disclosing this data, as in most cases, it does not constitute a commercial secret. Additionally, they usually share self-monitoring results when requested in writing, so we see no problem with their public disclosure. And if in the case of any enterprise this is a commercial secret, after appropriate justification, they can remove only these specific enterprises from the list.

The agencies oppose the proactive, online publication of violation reports, arguing that until a court recognizes a specific case as a violation, they cannot publish the reports. Additionally, they note that they are not obligated to do all this by law.

However, we emphasize that this is information of public interest, it must be published, and it is possible to indicate the status of court proceedings in it. This is typically done when sharing reports in response to written requests.

The fulfillment of the second and third points by the DES will also count as fulfilled for the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture, as the DES is an agency within its system. We are not asking the Ministry to fulfill these obligations additionally.

It’s worth mentioning, that from the court decision, the agencies agree with only one point – to conduct planned inspections of at least 20 regulatory facilities in Rustavi before the full implementation of the law on industrial emissions.

Even the refusal to fulfill simple obligations shows how little priority the state gives to citizens’ health and their information. The case will continue to be heard in the Appeals Court.