Saying that they could not tolerate the government’s disrespect of the law anymore, nine attorneys yesterday helped farmers in Houli Township (后里), Taichung County, file yet another lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the National Science Council (NSC) and the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) over the development of the park’s Houli campus.
The controversies surrounding the third-phase expansion of the science park in Houli have been simmering for years as local farmers and environmentalists strongly oppose the development project, while the government strongly supports it.
Locals and environmentalists have filed lawsuits to stop the development project and the operations of two technology firms already completed on the campus. However, despite court decisions voiding environmental impact assessment results for the projects and suspending operations of AU Optronics (AUO, 友達光電) and Sunner Solar (旭能光電), the EPA, NSC and CTSP insisted that because the project was based on an environmental impact assessment result that was valid at the time, the project should continue without any problem.
The government’s decision sparked public uproar, with many academics and politicians criticizing the move as “twisting the law.”
“This morning, we have filed a lawsuit against the EPA, NSC, as well as the CTSP with the Taipei High Administrative Court,” attorney Lin San-chia (林三加) told a press conference at the Taipei Bar Association.
“On Sept. 2, the Supreme Administrative Court clearly stated that continuing operations and construction do not conform with public interests. If the court makes such a clear statement asking government institutions to order the suspension of the project as well as operation of the factories already in existence, the government should follow suit,” Lin said.
“Since it does not, we’re suing them again,” Lin said.
While some attorneys on the case have been working with environmental groups for a long time, there are some new faces on the team this time.
Attorney Chang Yu-yin (張譽尹) is one of them.
“I haven’t worked with cases related to environmental issues too much, but [what the government is doing now] is challenging and causing damage to the country’s status as a country with the rule of law,” Chang told the news conference. “We can’t expect anything good from the government anymore; it’s time for everyone to stand up.”
Another attorney, Lu Shih-wei, (陸詩薇) said she has joined the team of lawyers to defend constitutionalism in the country.
“This is not just about the environment, it’s a constitutional crisis. I cannot believe how the executive branch could trash the judiciary to this extent,” she said.
“I don’t know if the law can make a change, I don’t know if the farmers’ action can make a change, either, but I know if we don’t act now, injustice will continue,” she said.
Attorney Tsai Chih-yang (蔡志揚) said this may be the last time that people could try to defend the environment through legal action, as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) recently proposed a revision to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) that would give government agencies the power to decide whether to follow court decisions to void environmental impact assessment results.
“This may be the last time — we may have to take it to the streets and see bloodshed in the future,” he said.
Showing pictures of a large number of dead fish in a dry river- bed of Da-an River (大安溪) to the media, local Gongguan Village (公館) chief Feng Yung-huai (馮詠淮) said that since most of the water in the river has been directed to the CTSP nowadays for high -water-consuming technology plants, “fish are dying because there’s not enough water, and we’re worried that we don’t have enough water to irrigate our rice paddies.”
“We must be very careful about developing highly polluting industries, because we can import everything, but we cannot import land,” villager Liao Ming-tian (廖明田) said.
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