District judges in the state’s Environmental Court can now sentence people who violate aquatic and fisheries laws to education and community service, rather than only leveling criminal fines.
The new options took effect Thursday when Gov. David Ige signed Senate Bill 2453 as the first anniversary of Hawaii’s Environmental Court system approaches on July 1.
Over the past year, more than 1,000 cases have been handled by specially designated judges with expertise in environmental law, according to Associate Justice Michael Wilson of the Hawaii Supreme Court, who helped launch the Environmental Court. Most were at the district level, but some were in Circuit Court.
“Effective enforcement is key to sustainable fishing and natural resources,” said Associate Dean Denise Antolini of the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law. “The bill is nicknamed ASSET — for Alternative Sentencing and Supplemental Environmental Training — because it is focused on changing the behavior of violators of our natural resource laws in a positive way and for the long-term benefit of the entire community.”
While the new sentencing options apply only to fisheries and aquatic violations, the concept could be extended later to minor natural resource violations such as littering and technical permit violations.
Environmental Court has jurisdiction over streams, forests, air, mountains, water and terrestrial and marine life. Its judges hear environmental cases on certain days but also handle regular cases at other times.
Hawaii’s is the second statewide environmental court system in the country, after Vermont. It handles cases such as illegal dumping, the harvesting of undersized fish and contamination of streams.
Ige signed the bill during the 2016 India-Hawai‘i Law Symposium at the Richardson School of Law. The daylong meeting focused on climate change, environmental courts and constitutional law.
A high-level delegation, including the chief justice of India’s Supreme Court, T.S. Thakur, and Justice Swatanter Kumar, presiding chairman of the National Green Tribunal in India, came to Honolulu to take part in the symposium. Kumar helped with the establishment of Hawaii’s Environmental Court.
“India has been a leader in developing institutions to foster the protection of the environment, in particular through the founding of the Green Tribunal,” Hawaii Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald said Wednesday at a colloquium in Supreme Court chambers. “Here in Hawaii we have also taken a proactive approach to ensuring our judicial institutions have a capacity to reach just and consistent results in environmental cases through the creation of our environmental courts.”
India’s Green Tribunal has made some bold moves, including banning diesel vehicles more than 10 years old from the streets of New Delhi to reduce air pollution. It has also called for the cleanup of the Ganges River, considered the lifeblood of the country but polluted with industrial discharge and sewage.
“What we have to consider is the excessive exploitation of natural resources,” Kumar said at Wednesday’s meeting. “What you weigh is the available resources and your wish to become a developed country … That is why Gandhiji (Mahatma Gandhi) said, ‘Earth has everything to meet the need of the individual but not the greed of the individual.’”
