Environmental Considerations on the Criminal Process

Abstract

This paper highlighted the discussion about the environmental matters over the criminal proceeding. The author makes a presentation of the compared environmental criminal codifications; especially he focuses in the German regulation from which he rescues some aspects. He says that in an international level, as well as the compared law and the national law it legitimates the concept of environmental justice access.  It does not forbidden that the environmental criminal law is a new area in the national criminal regulation, as well as it must been questioned how the criminal procedure code will contribute with the environmental criminal policy purpose. Likewise, it made a reference regarding the environmental criminal proceeding elements in some countries in the region. Over the same topic it been said that the European development of the environmental criminal law has focused in the substantive part. Contrary, the Latin America experience presents an environmental criminal procedure tendency. As in every area of Law, there are concerns on the procedure issue of the environmental criminal justice. The main topics are the specialization of the criminal system agents and the criminal proceeding; to be necessary that we have to ask ourselves from a criminal policy perspective why the environmental criminality does not considered a relevant phenomenon. Moreover, it been planted proposals of environmental crime persecution policies, among them, three topics: interpretation policies and crimes application, proceedings policies and, in the end, the research policies and functional management. Finally, it is necessary a conceptual and dogmatic redirection of the criminal procedure code from an environmental perspective for an appropriate judgment of the environmental crimes.