Brazilian State of Pará introduces new law for administrative environmental proceedings

Originally published on May 12, 2022, Pará State Law No. 9,575 addresses administrative proceedings for environmental damage and applicable penalties, and also encourages administrative conciliation proceedings at the state level. While Article 11, paragraph 2 and Articles 44, 45, 54 and 55 have been effective (retroactively) since the date of publication, the remaining provisions of the law also took effect on October 12, 2022.

Previously, environmental proceedings were conducted under the terms of Pará State Law No. 5,887/1995 – which introduced the Pará State Environment Policy (PEMA) – and subsequently, Federal Law No. 9,605/1998 and Federal Decree No. 6,514/2008 (and their amendments).

In the view of Pará State Governor Helder Barbalho – who prepared and proposed the bill for the new law – Pará’s environmental policy did not sufficiently consider the complexity and specific characteristics of environmental matters. Consequently, he suggested a new law was necessary to “settle issues that hinder the provision of public services and the application of penalties.”

New judging structure

Pará State Law No. 9,575/2022 has introduced a series of significant changes to optimize how environmental violations are assessed at the state level. One fundamental change provides that the Pará State Environment Council (Coema) is no longer responsible for analyzing appeals. Previously, the Pará State Environment and Sustainability Office (Semas) functioned as a first-instance court, with Coema hearing any appeals. This arrangement had been subject to criticism, as Coema proved to be unable to deal with the proceedings in a reasonable timeframe.

Pará State Law No. 9,575/2022 provides for a new structure, which includes the following:

• A first-instance committee of high-level state public servants – preferably with a background in applied social sciences.
• An Environmental Administrative Appellate Court (TRA), which will replace Coema.

Assigning specific people/authorities to assess environmental violations serves to increase the quality and speed up the analysis of proceedings (and appeals), mitigating also the risk of limitation.

Environmental conciliation proceedings

Pará State Law No. 9,575/2022 also aims to encourage conciliation proceedings, providing a number of incentives for selecting this method from the outset. The new law provides that environmental conciliation proceedings can assist in closing administrative proceedings through one of the following settlement methods:

• Payment of fines in installments;
• Early payment of fines, with a discount to be defined by a decree;
• Payment of fines after the deadline for their settlement with a discount to be defined by degree;
• Replacement of fines with services for environmental conservation, improvement, and restoration.

All of the methods mentioned above are binding for the violating party, and under the terms of the sole paragraph of Article 44, they theoretically prevent environmental authorities from filing subsequent appeals at either the judicial or administrative level. Naturally, the judicial review process would still remain an option to guarantee access to justice; however, the scope of any such reviews would be restricted to more formal, legal questions.

The move toward encouraging conciliation proceedings for environmental issues has already been seen at the federal level in Brazil, as well as in other states. The significant volume of unpaid fines and filed appeals has led Brazil’s public administration to seek more efficient means for settling violating parties’ debts, which would consequently generate more funds for environmental conservation and restoration. As such, conciliation hearings may represent a useful alternative for both the violating parties and the public administration, avoiding the need to dedicate time, personnel, and financial resources to analyze environmental proceedings and appeals, as well as the potential risk of not receiving the funds from the penalties applied.

Deadlines counted in business days

Prior to enacting Law No. 9,575/2022, the State of Pará also enacted Law No. 8,932/2020,  which determined that deadlines for state-level administrative proceedings must be counted in business days rather than calendar days. In a similar vein, the new law also establishes that deadlines for environmental proceedings must also be counted in business days, which is not the case at the federal level.

For further information on environmental matters, please contact Mattos Filho’s Environmental Law & Climate Change practice area.