Environmental protection officials yesterday called for tougher punishment for industrial polluters, after the Kaohsiung District Court on Monday handed down suspended sentences varying from 16 to 22 months to four employees of Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE) who were found guilty of releasing untreated industrial wastewater into a Greater Kaohsiung irrigation stream.
The ruling has been criticized by civic groups as too lenient, with the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office vowing to file an appeal.
Derek Chen (陳金德), Director-General of the Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau, criticized the ruling yesterday, saying the presiding judge was not knowledgeable about water pollution and urged the judiciary to establish a specialized court for cases involving environmental issues.
The judge, Chen Wen-cheng (陳文呈), had stated that the evidence provided by prosecutors and the bureau were “weak” and “inadequate.”
According to the judge, the water quality of the stream was unstable on the day samples were gathered, as there were fluctuations in the results on pollutant content.
The ruling said “the evidence was flawed,” because prosecutors claimed a contamination level based on figures from one sample, taken at 4pm in the afternoon on Oct. 1 last year.
The ruling said that the conclusion could not be made that the stream had a dangerous level of pollution just because one test result had exceeded the legal limit.
It also said prosecutors failed to prove that ASE had discharged the untreated industrial wastewater for more than seven-and-a-half hours on Oct. 1 and that its contamination level constituted a danger to public safety.
The ruling also said that prosecutors had provided only one fish sample to indicate they had tested for heavy metal content, and thus overall the evidence was “weak, inadequate” and insufficient to prove the firm had committed offenses against public safety.
Chen Chin-te yesterday criticized the ruling, saying “the evidence was very clear on ASE’s violations.”
“When ASE was found discharging untreated wastewater in October last year, on the day of the incident we gathered water samples and the tested results showed contamination levels exceeding the legal limits,” he said.
“So I don’t understand how the judge can say the evidence was ‘weak [and] inadequate.’ All I can say is that the judge was very amateur [on the subject of environmental pollution],” he added.
Chen Chin-te called on judges to attend courses on environmental protection topics and suggested the judiciary establish a specialized court to preside over cases to do with pollution and environmental issues.
Separately yesterday, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥) also spoke out for tougher punishment in such cases.
“The EPA’s stance is that if industrial wastewater discharge had led to cases of fatalities among members of the public, then the maximum punishment should be a life-term jail sentence,” Wei said.
“We hope the legislature can expedite the procedure to amend the existing law,” he added.
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