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The review wishes to explore options for enforcement decisions to be appealed and reviewed internally; what types of enforcement decisions should be internally reviewed and who should be able to apply for an internal review?
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Under the Environment Protection Act, most enforcement decisions can only be reviewed by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). The Compliance and Enforcement review will explore options for enforcement decisions to be appealed internally (see Chapter 8 of the Discussion Paper).
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Relates to
document:
Compliance and Enforcement Review Discussion Paper
Comment 1 28 Sep 2010, 8:18 AM
On the assumption that an offence/action is not life threatening or is going to totally destroy an element of our environment. I like the idea of the Tailored approach, as suggested in the EPA’S COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT REVIEW Publication 1354 September 2010
I also believe that there should be potential for community input, where the offence or action affects the local community.
The appeal process should be open to the offender and anyone that disagrees with the EPA determination. The problem being, how to protect this process from people taking advantage of the system to “punish” a business.
I think there is a lot to discuss on this issue and it is not really a “one cap fits all” situation.
Comment 2 23 Oct 2010, 6:55 PM
Firstly, all enforcement decisions within the organisation should be reviewed to ensure that they meet EPAs policy and guidelines PRIOR to them being delivered (so have your own house in order to start with). Secondly, anyone who is subject to enforcement action should be eligible to apply for an internal review. I suppose it would also be fair for interested parties to also be able to have a decision reviewed, perhaps even if the decision from EPA was not to go down the enforcement path.
To give the internal review process credibility there would need to be an independant on the panel preferably with some environmental background.
