Judiciary and Pollution Control

The judiciary has been very active in environmental protection throughout the world in recent years. Notwithstanding the fact that there are several limitations of the judiciary in handling environmental issues, it has several advantages also. We discuss some of the issues related to the involvement of judiciary in environmental protection.

a) Judges are usually non-specialists in environmental aspects, which limit their capabilities in dealing with environmental issues. Nonetheless, they have broad vision of national development based on the existing national policies of the country - concerned.

b) Whenever judicial process is involved in environmental protection, due to various technological clarifications, by and large environmental protection expenditure will be on the higher side.

C) Judiciary has its limitations in protecting the environment holistically as it responds only against the litigation brought to the court by the affected party.

d) Judiciary, by its very nature, is not continuously involved in environmental protection process and hence, judicial verdict relating to environment protection may be difficult to integrate into the national policy process.

e) Judges are not involved in electoral politics and are free from political interventions, and hence, they can take extreme steps in pronouncing judgments to protect the environment.