Administrative Environmental Law

• Author: Winston Anderson
• Pages: 111-124

Page 111

6. Administrative Environmental Law

Administrative law has developed rapidly

over the recent past and is probably now the

fastest growing area of Caribbean law.1 is

exponential growth and development is being felt

in every a rea of public law, including environmen-

tal law. It seems fair to say that administrative law

is currently having pronounced eects on virtually

every aspect of environmental law and that this

inuence is likely to increase in importance in the

foreseeable future.

What may be styled “administrative environ-

mental law” is judicial control of government regu-

lation of the environment, calling for the application

of both administrative law and environmental law

jurisprudence.2 Environmental management is

generally the preserve of public authorities. Indeed,

contemporary legislative developments have greatly

expanded environmental decisionmaking by pub-

lic ocials. ese decisions—whether taken by

the minister, statutory agencies, or other public

authorities—are public law decisions and there-

fore amenable to judicial scrutiny. e doctrine

of judicial review, a well-established cornerstone

of administrative law in the Ca ribbean, al lows an

interested party to seek judicial examination of the

decision of bodies exercising public environmental

functions.

Adherence to administrative law standards gives

expression to the procedural rights of the public in

ensuring procedural propriety on the part of those

exercising governmental functions. e primary

role of the court in administrative environmen-

1. See generally A F, C C

P L (2nd ed. 1999) at ix (opining that “the state of

public law litigation continues to increase apace” and there was

“a great thirst for credible information in public law,”).

2. People United Respecting the Environment v. Environmental

Management Authority, CV 2007-02263, 4 (judgment June

16, 2009) (High Ct.) (Trin. & Tobago).

tal law is, therefore, to ensure that environmental

authorities do not act outside the statutory pow-

ers given to them, that is, ultra vires. Where gov-

ernmental decisions aecting the environment

are struck down for lack of vires, a wide array

of remedies becomes available to the applicant

to ensure proper redress. A lthough an action for

judicial review must be initiated by an interested

party, the competence to seek judicial assessment

of environmental decisionmaking is increasingly

being liberalized so that today little more than a

demonstrated genuine interest in environmental

protection, along with some expertise in the matter

before the court, seems to be required. In this way

the notion of public participation in environmental

management is respected and guaranteed.

e view has been posited that the use of rem-

edies by Caribbean courts of administrative law

may be intended to give eect to constitutional

rights.3 is may well be so in administrative envi-

ronmental law, as it regards environmental rights

specied in the constitution. However, where there

are no specic environmental rights in the consti-

tution to vindicate,4 judicial review of environmen-

tal decisionmaking may simply be concerned with

ensuring proper governance in accordance with the

constitutional principles of Ca ribbean democrac y.

As such, administrative environmental law plays its

part in the general upholding of the constitutional

order and the rule of law.

Development of Framework for

Judicial Review

Judicial review of government decisionmaking has

its origins in the common law. English courts were

3. F, supra note 1, at 12-16.

4. See id. at ch. 2.