- The Swedish authorities’ work in detecting and investigating suspected environmental crimes is a failure, and that criticism now comes from one of Sweden’s foremost environmental prosecutors.
- One of the problems she highlights is how the municipalities’ supervisory work works and that many environmental crimes are never detected. At the same time, she feels that the crimes are not a priority for the police and that it has been difficult to get investigators.
- In order to increase the reputation for environmental crimes in the judiciary, she thinks that the criminal law provisions for environmental crimes should be moved from the Environmental Code to the Criminal Code.
Helena Eckerrot Flodin has worked as an environmental prosecutor for 20 years and is the prosecutor who conducted the investigations where the longest prison sentences were handed down.
– I have had several investigations where it was felt that the legislation puts sticks in the wheel to get there.
One of the more successful investigations is about the big battery waste scandal where four men were convicted in the Court of Appeal for environmental crimes and serious environmental crimes. This is after around 2000 tonnes of waste from recycled batteries was dumped and buried on various properties in Central Sweden.
– A large part of the negotiations we have regarding environmental crime is that the law exists and that it should be used in these cases.
The investigation regarding the battery waste came in via a prosecution report on unauthorized land use and it was after some detective work that the environmental crime was discovered.
Here is one of the shortcomings that Helena Eckerrot highlights. That the municipalities’ supervisory work differs and sometimes does not work. In many cases, environmental crimes are never detected.
At the same time, she feels that the crimes are not a priority for the police and that it has been difficult to get access to investigators.
– I’m critical of the whole chain. Not only against the supervisory work but also on the prosecution and police side and in terms of legislation. You do not see this as a criminal case.
When she now has to retire, she is critical of how the law is and thinks that it should be changed, among other things by moving the criminal law provisions for environmental crimes from the Environmental Code to the Criminal Code.
– From my point of view, I think it would be good. When it comes to criminal law, it must be predictable. When you look at the Environmental Code, it is, perhaps not fuzzy, but not so far away.
Source: ICELAND NEWS