Legal principles play a central role in environmental legal decision-making and handling of cases. For example, a key principle included in environmental legislation is the principle of causation, i.e. The polluter pays principle. The precautionary principle is embodied by various arrangements for the advance control of activities that spoil and change the environment, such as environmental permit systems. The precautionary principle includes the principle of caution and the principle of prevention.
In activities that cause the risk of environmental pollution, the principle is to proceed with the care and caution required by the quality of the operation in order to prevent environmental pollution, and to take into account the probability of the risk of pollution caused by the activity, the risk of accidents, and the possibilities for preventing accidents and limiting their effects (principle of caution and care) and to follow appropriate and cost-effective combinations of different actions (environmentally best practice principle).
The principle of prevention, on the other hand, aims to prevent or at least minimize the likely harmful environmental effects of the planned activity in advance. Solving matters in the field of environmental law is most often administrative decision-making, and the decision-maker is bound not only by environmental legal principles but also by administrative legal principles. Administrative legal principles protect the private person subject to administrative action by setting the limits of discretion for the authorities, while environmental legal principles primarily protect the environment or other environmental stakeholders from the actions of both authorities and private individuals.
In environmental legal processes, the principles guide decision-makers as well as operators. Interpretation help for the application of the principles is available from the decisions of the supreme administrative court as well as from legal literature. According to the principle of equality, everyone must be treated in the same way in similar matters. The authority’s actions must be objectively justified and impartial. When resolving matters, the authorities must strive to secure trust in the impartiality of administrative activities, because administrative activities must not be based on inappropriate grounds, such as the pursuit of personal gain, the favoring of friends, or the pursuit of the financial interests of the public sector.
Environmental legal principles are also strongly present in civil law agreements as well as in matters related to environmental crimes, and their application can have a significant impact when resolving the matter. Environmental law is an interesting world, where the effects of emissions from large industrial plants and the conditions for granting a permit, the right to take groundwater for drinking water or the granting of an exception permit for coastal construction are sometimes evaluated. Environmental law and administrative law principles strictly follow the daily activities of our environmental law lawyers.