THE High Court has ruled as unconstitutional the practice
by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) which prohibits members of the
public from photocopying and reproducing its environment impact assessment
(EIA) reports.
Justice Clement Phiri said EMA’s application of the
Environmental Management Act was ultra vires section 62 of the Constitution.
The determination was made by consent following an
application by the Community Water Alliance (CWA), a civic organisation whose
mandate includes advocacy on water governance issues.
According to the civic organisation, EMA refuses the public
permission to make copies of the EIA reports and above all, charges exorbitant
fees to anyone wishing to have sight of such report even without having to make
a copy of same.
On September 2, 2020, however, Justice Phiri outlawed EMA’s
move and further ordered the Tourism ministry to review its fees with a view to
allowing the public to have access to information.
“The application by the Environmental Management Agency
(EMA) of section 108 of the Environmental Management Act in a manner that
prohibits members of the public from producing documents in the possession of
the Environmental Management Agency is hereby declared as ultra vires section
62 of the Constitution,” Justice Phiri ruled.
“Members of the public be and are hereby allowed to make
the inspection on the machine readable record and make notes on the
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and copies thereof at their
expense. Second respondent (Tourism ministry) be and is hereby ordered to take
the necessary measures to review the fee in line with reasonable standards that
take into consideration the fundamental right of access to information.”
According to CWA, in pursuit of its objectives together
with its collaborators, it sought to intervene in attempts to limit the
destruction of the wetlands and of particular interest was the Kambuzuma
Section 2 wetland, wherein a developer was constructing a service station.
As a result, the civic organisation said, it sought to
obtain the EIA report for the aforementioned wetland from EMA, but a copy of
the said document proved impossible to access due to the fact that EMA charged
an exorbitant fee of $300 for such access and above all the report itself could
not be photocopied or uplifted as EMA would not allow it.
It was, however, the civic organisation’s argument that the
average EIA report would mostly be over 100 pages, meaning that one would have
to sit at EMA’s offices and make copious notes since the latter would not even
allow pictures of its report to be taken. Newsday
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