On March 3rd, 2021, through the Zoom online platform, the Center for Legal Research and Analysis launched the public policy document “How to Achieve Efficient and Effective Environmental Justice?”
The public policy document was presented by the CLRA and the authors of the document, a team consisting of 4 local and one international expert. The critical points in the institutional and legislative framework for the environment detected by the Analysis of Gaps and Shortcomings – challenges and opportunities for the institutional and legal framework for the environment, as well as the corresponding recommendations for overcoming these gaps, were discussed.
The program manager at CLRA, Nikola Jovanovski, who led the event, emphasized that he hopes that this document will contribute to all key stakeholders in environmental protection to create policies that will be more efficient and effective.
The legal expert, Zharko Aleksov pointed out that the starting point of this document are the conclusions that emerge from the Analysis of Gaps and Shortcomings, which together constitute a systematized approach to the pain points in the environment, determining future steps to improve the conditions in the environment. Aleksov focused on the structure of the public policy document itself, noting that it consists of 3 parts:
- Summary observations and recommendations – a kind of guide in determining future steps considered through the prism of 5 value categories: efficiency, transparency, promptness, quality and access to justice.
- A traffic light of functional and formal harmony – a pictorial way of presenting the 5 value categories
- International practices from EU member states and good practices.
Aleksov noted that although the right to a healthy environment is a constitutionally guaranteed right (as well as an obligation of the state), the opening of the door to environmental justice is taking place slowly due to increasing industrialization.
At the end of his presentation, the legal expert Zharko Aleksov summarized the six recommendations arising from the Public Policy Document, which were further discussed in more detail by the other authors: 1. It is necessary to prepare a functional analysis of the Ministry of Education and Culture with all parameters 2. Preparation of a summary strategic document with measurable indicators for monitoring and evaluation 3. Establishing interoperability for data exchange and coordination 4. Review of the legal legal concept to strengthen legal protection 5. Review of the legal competencies of the municipalities vs. budget capacities 6. Increasing cooperation with CSOs as partners of the state.
Aleksandar Dedinec, a research associate at MANU, focused on two value categories, efficiency and transparency, presenting the summary observations with the corresponding proposals. As the main problem in the field of efficiency, he highlighted the absence of inter-ministerial coordination, and cooperation between the central and local levels, as well as the bureaucratization of the establishment of new departments and management structures. Dedinec summarized the proposals for the efficiency section in several groups, emphasizing that status, legal changes and compliance with legal obligations for technical inspections are needed.
In terms of transparency, the main problem is that information is not provided to the Ministry of Education and Culture, and because of this, it is difficult to identify problems in a timely manner, and this leads to the absence of appropriate measures to overcome these problems.
Professor Gordana Lažetic discussed in more detail the gaps and the corresponding proposals for the remaining three value categories. For the part of quality, Professor Lažetic singled out three aspects that make it up that deserve special attention, namely: staff, technical aspects and financial resources. In terms of urgency, the main axiom is that the right to a healthy environment is not being realized, but this problem should not be transferred to the Ministry of Education and Culture, because all active stakeholders should take an active part. The proposals are in the direction of mutual connection of the strategic documents with the goals and measures, as well as greater compatibility of the laws with each other. He singled out access to justice as the most problematic part, which he compared to a labyrinth (constitutional law is only declarative, with limited access to judicial protection). Prof. Lažetic emphasized that the expert team advocates for the existence of an environmental lawsuit and an environmental task force.
Lawyer Aleksandar Godzo covered the second part of the Public Policy Document, that is, the traffic light of formal and functional compliance. He compared the traffic light to a tool that will serve society because environmental protection is a test that the entire society must pass on the way to EU membership.
The scoreboard is made according to the indicators of good governance for all areas analyzed by the Gap Analysis. Lawyer Godzo emphasized that the yellow color of the traffic light is dominant, that is RNM, and in terms of functional and formal compliance it is somewhere in the middle, there is a tension between the need and requirement for compliance with international standards and strategic documents and the needs of society and its opportunities to be as in those regulations without reflecting it on the economy.
International expert Jovanka Ignjatović spoke more about what is happening in the countries around us in the field of environmental management, in terms of “how we as people exercise our authority over natural resources and natural systems”.
The expert Ignjatovic presented to those present the general lessons that EU member states learned during the process of implementing environmental management, recommendations for overcoming shortcomings, as well as the reasons for weaknesses in implementation and poor environmental management. It was emphasized that 5 aspects were considered: transparency, public participation, access to justice, ensuring compliance and accountability, effectiveness and efficiency.
Finally, Jovanka Ignjatovic emphasized that there are no “good” and “bad” practices in a broader sense, but only an opportunity to learn from each other in terms of approaches to coordination between different administrative levels and different groups of stakeholders.
The public policy document “How to achieve efficient and effective environmental justice” is part of the project “Establishment of efficient and effective environmental justice”, funded by the Government of the United Kingdom, with the support of the British Embassy in Skopje, and you can download it at the following link.