Today, 18 September 2007, the Minister for the Environment, Jaanus Tamkivi, put his signature to the radiation practice licence to be issued to AS Steri, giving the sterilisation factory the right to work with sources of radiation. The minister has also taken the decision to appeal the court ruling against the Ministry of the Environment of 31 August for having open proceedings in the course of processing the permit and having launched an environmental impact assessment. “In the Steri case there are two sides with very specific and intractable points of views – local residents and the owners of the radiation factory,” Minister Tamkivi explained. “And from their points of view their expectations are justified. For my own part I sympathise with both parties, which is why it was not easy to come to a decision. But I weighed up all of the arguments and took the two related court rulings into account, and as such I decided to issue the radiation practice licence to AS Steri.” The Ministry of the Environment has decided to appeal the ruling of the Tallinn Administrative Court in which the ministry’s actions in processing the amendments to AS Steri’s radiation practice licence were declared unlawful. The decision to appeal stems primarily from the fact that the court has taken the ministry to task over the open proceedings used to amend the licence. The court ruled that carrying out open proceedings must be considered unlawful. “It is important to the Ministry of the Environment what the people think, which is why we cannot agree with the court in this case,” Minister Tamkivi said. “In a procedure such as this one that affects a lot of people, we feel that we must operate according to the principles of open proceedings – involving local residents in the decision-making process.” The minister had postponed making any decision with regard to issuing the radiation practice licence to AS Steri in order to await the rulings of the court in the two cases in which Steri is involved. In one, local residents took the Minister to court as they were dissatisfied with his approval of the environmental impact assessment statement. They were not happy that they had failed to receive answers to all of their questions during public discussions of the assessment. In the other case, the owners of AS Steri took the minister of the environment to court in order to have the ministry’s actions in processing the application for the amendment of the radiation practice licence declared unlawful. The radiation practice licence has been issued to AS Steri for a period of five years. For further information please contact: Brita Merisalu |
