Administrative and civil liability for damage caused by the impact on the environment

Abstract

This article is aimed at showing, through the analysis of specific elements of legal liability, which type of liability dominates in regulations referred to preventing and repairing damage in the environment: Directive 2004/35/ EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on liability for environment in relation to preventing and remedying damage caused in the natural environment, the Act on Preventing Damages in the Environment and their Repair of 13 April 2007 and the Environmental Protection Act of 27 April 2001. This article shows that indicated acts include both elements of civil liability and administrative liability and it specifies place and role in the law of the civil and administrative liability for damage caused to the environment, and also compares these legal institutions in the context of environmental protection.

The authors of the article begin the analysis of topic by defining the term ‘damages’ in the civil law, and in the Act on Damages, then they refer to the definition of ‘environmental damage’ and finally compare the meaning of these two definitions. Through the analysis of these terms they try to answer the question, what is the legal character of damages in the environmental law, and if damages should have administrative meaning because of public character of the interest protected by the investigation of damage compensation. Moreover, the authors try to define the term ‘legal liability’ and they consider which type of legal liability is the liability for environmental damages, and which opinion dominates in the doctrine. Besides, the article focuses on the issue that the rule of guilt should give way to forms of liability based on objective criteria and comparing this with the predominant in the classical structure meaning of the damage in civil understanding the rule of the wrongful actions. The article presents the functions of legal liability in environmental protection and indicates which function dominates in specific type of legal liability refers to liability for environmental damages, at the same time, conditioning, as it were, the character of this liability. Subsequently, the authors make an analysis of procedure for pursing claims in matters relating to liability for environmental damage, e.g. which authorities are competent to make decisions and in what mode they take action. Authors also specify damage compensation measures that entitle to certain parties and make a conclusion if these measures have civil or administrative character. Refers to that, they describe the legal institution called ‘ecological compensation’.

To sum up, the article focuses on specifying term limits for administrative and civil liability in legal regulations concerning protection of the environment and shows what led to the legislation that created existing regulations which cause plenty of dilemmas and controversies and have a complicated legal construction.