The question posed here is who is the administrative body that bears the administrative responsibility for the management’s error, according to this huge number of administrative bodies and public officials in charge of its management?!”

Dr.: Mohamed Mostafa Eyadat

Expert in international environmental law / President of the National Center for Environmental Justice

Introduction:

I am not offering my opinion, but rather analyzing the legal reality of the repercussions of the Aqaba gas leak incident from the concept of environmental crimes, in accordance with the legislation governing environmental protection in Jordan.

It seems easy to determine who is directly responsible for what happened in the act of leaking poisonous gas in the port of Aqaba and to establish legal responsibility for him, whether civil or criminal, as well as administrative.

This is the legal reference for the competent judiciary, starting from the investigation stages and ending with the issuance of judicial rulings by the competent court, considering this case, taking into account all legal litigation procedures in all transparency and integrity, and it will be revealed in the coming days.

But the matter is not so easy if we take into account the idea of ​​environmental crime as an independent crime, which has its elements and conditions and the necessity of achieving the environmental damage by which responsibility is determined, as well as the elements of the criminal act and the causal relationship between the act and the result.

The most important of all of the above is the identification of the applicable law in light of the complexity of the overlapping laws, regulations, and instructions, which stipulated in one way or another the determination of the crime and the penalty specified for it in accordance with each legal text separately, and then determining who is responsible.

There are many legal questions raised in this regard, and the answer to them may not be as easy as possible, given the identification of the perpetrator’s responsibility for the accident, and from here we begin.

Related questions:

• – What does environmental crime mean? What are its pillars, strips, and characteristics? What is environmental damage? And the condition to be achieved according to Jordanian legislation?

• – What is meant by legal liability for environmental crimes? And what are its types? How is the responsibility of the perpetrator determined? (natural or legal person)

• – What is the most appropriate theory for the adaptation of environmental crime, and which one did the Jordanian legislator take?

• – What about determining the responsibility of the administration in the event that it is proven wrong, or negligent in performing its work, and who is the administrative responsibility in case of proven?

• – How is it possible to prove future environmental damage if, after a period of time, side effects appear on a number of persons and properties? How do they claim their legal rights?

• – How can the independent natural environmental damages such as pollution in the air, water, soil, and fisheries be identified and counted at present and in the future?

• – How can a causal relationship be proven between action and effect? In such a case, especially if there were other factors that contributed to the spread of the damage that was not related to the human hand, such as the direction of the air, its speed, the activity of the wind, and its movement.

• – What is the applicable law or legal authority that determines the perpetrator’s responsibility for his actual crime, and what are the laws in force in the Aqaba Economic Zone and the specificity of its local administration?

• – Who is the competent court to consider this case, and what is the extent of its validity in judging the civil part of the penal part, given that the criminal rule makes sense to the citizens?

• – To what extent are international standards applied by international conventions ratified by Jordan in such aspects, and what is the extent of compliance with international standards for the principles of international environmental law? Including, for example, the principle of the precautionary approach and the principle of the pollutant motive

These and other questions are necessarily controversial and may not be sufficient and comprehensive for the repercussions of the event and its cause is due to the specificity of environmental crimes and their overlap in more than one field, the multiplicity of actors, and the complexity of the legal texts that frame their criminalization, as well as the specificity of environmental damage that differs in essence from ordinary damage and the difficulty of proving it and determining responsibility If verified.

To be able to adapt and analyze the facts on this act, it is necessary to answer all these questions posed to the extent available and in accordance with the effective Jordanian legislation, based in the analysis of the scientific research method and the opinions of jurisprudence regarding one issue or another that we will direct in this adaptation.

To view the legal analysis of environmental crime in the port of Aqaba, click here