Panagjurishte District Court against the executor of the project. The main thesis was that the defendant had inten-tionally misled the MOEW in its permit application by claiming the sewage sludge from the Plovdiv treatment plant was not hazardous. The defendant knew that the Plovdiv plant treated both city and industrial wastewater because some of the local factories did not have their own plants.
The plaintiff asked the court to invalidate the permit and to order the defendant to cease the transportation and storage of the dangerous waste near the Elshitza village.
The court was also asked for an injunction prohibiting continued transportation of the sludge in order to prevent further damage, but this request was rejected.
During the proceedings an ecologist conducted a chemical analysis and confirmed the conclusions of several preliminary experts’ reports that the sewage sludge was hazardous according to national legislation.
The court ignored these conclusions and did not take into account the law approving the annual report of MOEW for 1997. Instead, the court granted the defendant’s assertion that the absence of a special section for hazardous waste treatment in the plant proved that the sewage sludge was not hazardous. The claim was rejected and the defendant submitted a demand for excessively high court expenses.
The third-party intervenors had been called to join the process in order to help the defendant without having any particular interest. They did not help substantially, but their absence caused the hearings to be postponed several times while the defendant was continuing the waste transporta-tion activities.
During the hearings, the ecologist changed his conclusion in favour of the defendant. The court did not raise the question of false testimony even though the expert clearly gave contradictory explanations for the same facts.
The permit was issued without an EIA or public partic-ipation in the decision-making process in contradiction of the Environmental Protection Act and the Regulation for Environmental Impact Assessment. The EIA was completed by the time the project wrapped up, but the MOEW had refused to stop the activity.
In the proceedings, it was claimed that the issuing of the permit was legally defective in several ways:
• The new project did not have a complete EIA proce-dure, and a public participation procedure had not occurred before the issuing of the permit.
• The MOEW did not take into account that the Plovdiv wastewater treatment plant treated not only ordinary city wastewater but some industrial water as well. The latter contained many hazardous substances because some of the factories discharged directly into the sewage system without pretreatment.
• The MOEW did not take into account its annual report for the state of the environment for 1997 approved by the Parliament and published in the National Gazette.
In this report, the MOEW pointed out that Plovdiv’s wastewater plant was the seventh largest dangerous waste site in Bulgaria at the time. One of the motives for the waste transportation from the vicinity of Plovdiv was to solve a major ecological problem of the village where the waste was initially stored.
Final outcome
During the first instance proceedings, waste transporta-tion and storage continued.
The plaintiff appealed the first instance court judge-ment before the Pazardjk Regional Court, but the second instance proceedings had not begun by mid-2002. The reason for the delay was a gap in procedural rules concerning the delivery of the subpoenas and other messages, including judgements, to the litigants.
In addition, during five months of proceedings, the Supreme Administrative Court still had not delivered subpoenas to the MOEW or Marin Blagiev’s company.
Related actions and campaigns
The members of the Elshitza committee made every effort to stop the project. They met with members of Parliament, two successive environmental ministers, local authorities and journalists. The committee members staged campaigns for civil disobedience. They managed to persuade the mayor of Panagjurishte to issue an ordi-nance to stop the waste transportation, which was shortly thereafter rescinded by the regional governor.
Access to justice techniques
The committee filed a complaint at the Panagjurishte District Court against the holder of the waste transportation and storage permit. However, it also filed complaints with:
• the MOEW to cancel the permit and to compel the defendant to stop the waste transportation; and
• the Supreme Administrative Court against the MOEW.
Case study analysis
The first instance court neglected clear, substantial viola-tions of the law — the EIA was not carried out as required by article 20 of the Environmental Protection Act and the Regulation of the EIA; the proposed new project was not discussed publicly; and the permit was issued in violation of a law defining this particular waste as hazardous. All of these were reasons to invalidate the permit.
The court refused to issue an injunction against the
illegal activity, giving the defendant the opportunity to cause further environmental damage during court proceed-ings. The law defining hazardous waste was ignored along with other facts proving the presence of hazardous substances in the sewage sludge stored near Elshitza.
The civil procedure is not geared to dispatch cases with major public interest because the terms provided are not clearly defined and defendants can prolong the procedures in many ways. In particular, the gap in procedural rules concerning delivery of subpoenas and other documents allowed litigants to prolong cases without justification.
Contacts
Michael Kodjabashev, Attorney at Law Ecological Association Demeter
44 Vassil Levski Blvd.
Sofia, Bulgaria
Email: demetra@iterra.net, m_kodjabashev@yahoo.com Ecological Association Demeter
16 Skobeleb Blvd. Entr.2 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tel: +35-92-526-956
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