Among these constitutional rights, the right of expression, to free assembly, to association and to petition are used most actively in Estonia. Public participation using the above constitutional rights in public actions was at the forefront of the early independence movement in the late 1980s. The so-called "singing revolution" began in 1988, with public groups protesting against plans to exploit phosphorus mines on the north east coast of Estonia. During this campaign, which involved the majority of Estonian inhabitants, signatures were collected, articles published in the newspapers, and special TV and radio broadcasts were transmitted.
The right of free assembly is stated by Art. 47 of the Constitution, whereas the right of association is ensured in Art. 48, which states that only the court may terminate the right of association in cases where laws have been violated. Under Art. 46, all persons have the right of petition, so citizens are free to submit state and local government authorities and officials with memoranda and applications. The right to information is guaranteed for all persons in Art. 44 of the Constitution and the exceptions of free information are listed in the Law on State Secrets, which was adopted in 1994 for the citations. Estonia does not have a separate Constitutional Court, but provides for decisions regarding the constitutionality of laws and acts to be made by the regular courts, so the right to petition Constitutional Court for review is available through this mechanism. Since 1994, one collegium of the National Court has been established to deal with constitutional issues. The right to judicial review is found in Art. 15 of the Constitution.
The right to know and freedom of information are only guaranteed as constitutional provisions. There are no other laws related to access of information, nor are there any procedures determined to obtain information. The Ministry of Environment (MoE) has established an Information Center, but there are few volunteers available to answer questions from the public.
No legislations related to organizing local referenda are present in Estonia. The decision belongs to the local authorities.
No laws or rules requiring public participation procedure in the drafting of laws or deliberations concerning them can be detected either at parliamentary or governmental level. Once a draft document is presented to parliament for the first reading, it is a public document and there is a possibility for public participation during the three obligatory readings before a law can be adopted. This process is still occasional and carried out through MPs only. Parliament rarely holds public hearings on laws and regulations. Government creates paid, ad hoc drafting committees to prepare laws, and sometimes NGO representatives have been included, depending on personal contacts. Within the Ministry of Environment, NGOs have participated in the drafting of documents related to EIA, nature protection objects, radiation, air, planning and construction. Waste management issues have been dealt with differently and the drafting process was more closed.
Local authorities are gaining more power, which is positive for solving environmental problems, but on the other hand, it takes some time before they can be trained to follow national environmental policy and to ensure sufficient involvement of public at local level.
Public participation in decisionmaking is very uneven in Estonia. Access to environmental information depends greatly on the will of the authorities involved. Officially letters should be answered in one month, but in practice this often does not occur. Local authorities claim, that they often have to rely on the media to be able to inform public. There have been both successful and failed public involvement cases recently.
Only the State Court is mentioned in half of the answers, and none those in the other half.
Courts:
The court system established by Art. 148 includes county, city and administrative courts, district courts and the National Court, the highest court of appeal and the court of constitutional review.
Under Art. 152 persons may complain of the unconstitutionality of a law or rule, of the actions of officials in applying the law.
Other remedies:
Art. 25 of the Constitution provides, that all persons shall have the right to compensation for moral and material injuries caused by any person's unlawful action.
Every citizen has the right to participate in court cases individually or through NGOs. However, NGOs do not have the right to initiate a court case. In case they find it necessary, they have to do it through a legal authority (attorney). In case of violations of nature protection laws, only state inspectors or other state authorities have the right of standing, and only they can sue the person, provided the charges for causing the damage have not been paid.
The court system established by Art. 148 of the Constitution includes county, city and administrative courts, district courts and the National Court as the highest court of appeal and the court of constitutional review. Lawyers are independent in their work. First and middle stage lawyers are appointed by the president and receive lifetime status, following a vetting process. Members of the National Court are appointed according to the list compiled by the Speaker of Parliament. Administrative Court does not deal with arguments, but only claims related to the activities of state authorities. They charge a standard 10 Estonian Crona, whereas in civil courts the tax depends on the case and anonymous complaints are never taken into account.
The term contempt of court is unfamiliar in Estonia.
Class actions have not taken place yet, but are possible in principle. There exists the right to claim a procedure closed, but in practice, it has been done only in criminal cases up to now. Estonian court system is undergoing change rapidly.
Art. 46 of the 1990 Nature Protection Act states that citizens can request information on environmental matters from the national and environmental authorities, but the procedure for such requests has not been established. The law related to the Protection of Natural Objects states that public notice is required when considering protected objects or areas, termination of protection, change in borders of protected areas, formation of different zones of protection or change of protection regime, through public media at least one month in advance.
Procedures concerning access to information are still relatively underdeveloped. Officials in the MoE are mainly concerned about establishing a good system to monitor data banks at the present moment. The MoE has an Information Center and they have started to publish a series of information booklets (e.g. on small wastewater purifiers, environmental standards for fertilizing etc.), which can be used by the public. There is a plan to establish a data center on the premises of the National (Parliament) Library, which would be open to everyone.
The law related to answering letters from the public was adopted in 1994. According to this, all letters of notice and other applications should be answered in writing within one month of receipt. Abuses of this law by the authority will result in punishment according to the Civil and Criminal Codes.
Ministerial Order No. 8 on the Methodological Guidelines for Implementing EIA in Estonia (1994) elaborates practical aspects and defines public participation terms. In this document public participation is defined as the participation of people and organizations in the process of EIA and herewith, having the possibility to influence the decision-maker. In EIA procedure, public participation is possible in three stages (1) scoping phase before the investment or project is started; (2) discussion of the draft environmental impact assessment study; (3) discussion of the final version of environmental impact statement (EIS). The responsibilities of the competent authority include making the public aware of the initiation of an EIA-process and also to make the results of EIA public through media, to assure public access to the EIS, as well as possibilities to comment. The latter should be attached to EIS and evaluated. Another important player in the process is the decision maker, whose responsibility is to make the public aware of the final decision and justification of that through media channels. In this respect, press conferences may become invaluable. The expert group working on the EIA is responsible for including public responses (such as written responses, media responses, statements for press conferences) in the Annex of EIS.
Although 47 private enterprises and 85 individuals gained licenses to conduct EIAs in Estonia, NGOs can point out only five positive examples of EIA with public participation in Estonia so far. One of these is the Muuga Port project. An open EIA proceeding forced several changes to the project plans in favor of the needs of the public. EIAs have been organized to assess the influence of building oil terminals in Kopli, new petrol stations belonging to "NESTE", "STATOIL" or the planning of new districts in bigger towns, especially planning of green areas, parks and avenues. Representatives of environmental NGOs have been invited to participate there and provide their comments, and proposals have been taken into account in most of the cases.
EIAs have been organized to assess the influence of building oil terminals (in Kopli), new petrol stations (for "NESTE", "STATOIL" etc.) or the planning of new districts in bigger towns, especially planning of green areas Ñ parks and avenues. Representatives of environmental NGOs have been invited to participate there and their comments and proposals have been taken into account in most of the cases.
Public participation provisions are included in the Ministerial Order related to the Procedure of EIA. The EIA Law is under development, giving these guidelines legal status and Collaboration between NGOs and the MoE concerning these guidelines has worked well.
Laws related to air protection, use of energy and nuclear energy have not been issued yet. Regarding the Earth Crust Act, licenses for using natural resources should be made public via local newspapers and they should be placed on the bulletin board of the municipality office. However licenses and permits for waste release are not necessarily published, since there is no such requirement in the legislation.
Law on Building and Planning (1995) includes a full chapter of provisions, like notice of planning procedures, the duty of cooperation, public access to documentation and an opportunity for comment. Local authorities have to make the plan public within one month after making the decision, they have to organize public hearings to introduce the aims of the planned activities and they have to organize public exhibition of planning documentation. During the exhibit period, amendments or protests from the public may be submitted. Local authorities organize another public hearing to discuss the results and if the basic solutions are to be changed, the exhibition and the public hearing should be repeated. Up to now positive, examples about such planning activities can be given in relation to the district planning of Tallinn. In that case, the cooperation among the public and the authorities has been considered successful.
The Law on Sustainable Development passed in early 1995, is primarily a declarative law, Art. 12 (8) of it states that public participation of land use planning, development programs and projects should be organized by the initiator. It also includes declarative statements about environmental impact assessment and environmental audits, thus representing a parliamentary ratification of the EIA concept.
Both the Criminal and Administrative Laws contain provisions which can be used to prosecute persons for violating environmental laws. Citizens do not have the right of direct enforcement, but may refer evidence of violations to the proper authorities who are under obligation to take action. Civil court cases in this field have already showed up. Cases have been mostly concerning damages to forests by illegal felling and polluting waters with oil-products. Damage to natural objects and destruction of rare species are also among the frequent cases. In these cases, the state deputy inspector is the accuser, public inspectors and the public as a whole have no right to sue.
Art. 53 of the Constitution, obliges persons to compensate for damages caused by him or her to the environment. According to the provision, procedures for compensation shall be established by law. Although civil and administrative actions are possible, in reality they do not occur.
Standard rules of establishing liability for causing harm apply in Estonia, but due to obstacles related to proof concerning establishment of causation, such cases are rarely brought to court. Up to now, nature had no owners other than the state, but recently the new private owners of lands, forests and watercourses have emerged, even two lakes are considered private lakes already, and there is an urgent need for legislation regulating the harming of nature.
Public participation in enforcement of laws, regulations and permits, as well as in the privatization process, is practically missing.
Relating to public participation provisions in administrative and environmental laws, the participation of both environmental NGOs as well as citizens, in EIA procedures the relevant possibilities for environmental protection in this way seems to be spreading.
Public participation in legislation and rule making is a critical area, so the experience of the representatives of EGM, which participated in the preparation of the Package Law and the Order on EIA Procedure, is considered to be very important. These discussions have been quite fruitful, for example, NGO demands to make the period between announcement of plans and hearing to the reactions from the public longer, were accepted and included into the final legislative document.
Estonian greens have discussed the influence of joining the European Union on the environmental protection legislation with the Foreign Ministry as well as within the special working groups of the parliament.
Estonian legal experts identify a holdover "Soviet mentality" as an impediment to public participation. According to these experts, public officials are simply not interested members of the public.
As it was mentioned earlier, the act related to Access to Information is still missing, as well as the relevant provisions and guidelines to be included in the legislative documents on various environmental protection matters.
Among the unique legislative solutions in Estonian legislative system, the absence of Constitutional Court and the fulfillment of its tasks by National Court should be mentioned. There is no Ombudsman in Estonia, who would control the single legislative acts concerning single citizens. Instead, the Justice Chancellor supervises general laws and orders in correlation with the Constitution.
Several public participation cases resulted in success. Participation in the planning process for an extension to the Kunda Cement factory and the construction of the Kunda Port and Muuga Port were successful, because the public received adequate noticed and information days were organized to inviting the public.
In Estonia, there have been several court cases related to environmental issues. The main topics of such cases have been violations against forests or water pollution with oil products by enterprises. Damaging rare natural species or other natural objects is common. In all these cases, the deputy inspector registered the damage done and the sum of money which had to be charged Cases, however, can only be brought to court if the guilty party does not pay damages.
On the other hand, some failures have to be mentioned. the public hearing about the plan to built a waste deposit for hazardous wastes in Aseri was a complete failure. The information was distributed too late and in the first stages the authorities tried to "dictate" the matters to local people, causing bad relations with them. The bicycle tour protesting against nuclear submarine study center in Paldiski has to be considered as a failure. Nuclear issues in Paldiski are still kept secret because the Russian counterpart demands it so. Estonian authorities themselves are also not interested in making relevant information public, nor listening to the opinion of citizens. The authorities are still afraid of publishing information and there is still a strong influence from the Russian side present in matters related to military pollution.
At an international level, EGM cooperates with many environmental organizations around the world. Coalition Clean Baltic unites the organizations of the Baltic Sea countries. Development of participatory democracy in Estonia is best promoted by taking part in the activities of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly.
There are a few green journalists. Tartu University, in collaboration with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, organized three seminars for environmental journalists in 1994. Several bigger newspapers (for example "MAALEHT") are urgently demanding articles from environmental NGOs, as they do not have their own environmental journalists.
Access to media is not hindered and can be evaluated as very good in Estonia. There have been some articles about public participation possibilities in EIA written by representatives of the MoE when the guidelines were drafted. Some journalists have reflected the discussions in governmental working groups where they have been invited to participate. But there have been no TV or radio broadcasts, nor newspaper articles, encouraging public participation in environmental decisionmaking matters, only the activities organized by environmental NGOs like seminars or protest demonstrations have been always depicted on the same day.
Public participation in business decisionmaking is almost missing. Green labeling and green consumerism exist to some extent, and the new industries are interested in creating their green image. The environmental friendliness of products and production processes is always included in their public advertisements and some of them have supported NGOs indirectly, sponsored EGM actions, the annual meeting of Friends of the Earth, for example. Usually the evidence of voluntary actions (e.g. environmental reporting) is related to the possibility of a loan from sources that demand that conditions be fulfilled.
Public participation in the different levels of decisionmaking process Looking at the levels of public participation in Estonia, it is obvious that access to environmental information for the public is guaranteed, but still insufficient and needs further development. NGOs are rarely consulted in the decisionmaking process, but at least their representatives are still invited to the meetings of some of the working groups. It has depended on personal relationships, mostly established and maintained by the involved persons. Joint decisionmaking has not happened so far and it will be a long time before the power of decision will be handed over to the public. However, there have been few complaints raised regarding the openness and transparency of decisionmaking process.
Writing letters of protest, complaints and petitions is the best available public participation tool to use. For example, those were written against the activities on the Paldiski nuclear object. During the annual bicycle tours, special appeals have been compiled on the topics of environmental pollution met on the way. In November 1989, in Pärnu, petition letters against the sewage water outlets in the mouth of the River Pärnu were written, which resulted in closing down of some of those. Collecting signatures and public notices was one of the methods frequently used. The collection of signatures to support or fight against certain issues is always a part of annual green meetings and are organized during local events.
Using media/TV/radio to publicize issues is possible and in cases of violation of environmental protection rules or extensive environment damage, TV news departments have been informed. In several cases, the foreign press has been a great help. Groups of journalists from Nordic countries have been brought to the "hot spots" and sometimes this has contributed to liquidation of the pollution source, as was the case in Autumn 1990, when military vessels in Paldiski Bay were dumped causing severe oil contamination.
Lobbying and demonstrations also provide good opportunities to ensure public participation. A good example of this was the case for building bicycle roads in Tallinn. A Bicycle Festival was organized by the Estonian Green Movement and a public opinion poll was carried out to ask peoples expectations and wishes concerning bicycling in the future Tallinn. This poll showed that most of the inhabitants of Tallinn would like to use bicycles and the results of the poll were used in the following lobby among the deputies of Tallinn Town Council. Plans for bicycle roads are ready now and money collected (as part of the revenues from parking taxes) but authorities are not willing to start construction.
Public meetings concern local problems, for example a Russian military ship factory, which was polluting the sea in the middle of the coastline belonging to Lahemaa National Park. Protest meetings are always organized during the annual green bicycle tours as well. Actions and cooperative actions with foreign NGOs have been successfully organized to perform informative campaign-exhibitions on the ecology of the Baltic Sea and against the road plan of Via Baltica.
Networking is one of the most general purpose tools of public participation. Annual Green Forum and leaflets published in small number are good examples, but it is also a means of developing cooperation among NGOs. The Estonian Green Movement consists of 13 local independent organizations and there are other environmental NGOs present in Estonia, thus there is a lot of networking between, but the e-mail network is still underdeveloped. At international level, EGM is a part of Coalition Clean Baltic network and the Youth Department of EGM is networking in the European Youth Forest Action (EYFA). Building action coalition was used for to call different NGOs to deal with one certain problem together, at both local and national levels. At a local level, for example, the Green Virumaa Club and the Local Section of the Society for Nature Conservation are solving the problems of Cement Factory Pollution. At national level, as another example, there is a coalition between several NGOs to protect the forests from illegal business.
Advisory services in the legal and non-formal public participation have just started. Still, some examples may be given: Tartu Eco Center has a license for making EIAs and they have participated in discussing several objects of republican importance.
Beside the successes, there are also some failed public participation cases. The construction of "Statoil" gasoline station onto the marketplace in Tartu in 1993 is a valid example. Public protests and petitions did not help stop the project, because the authorities were not interested in taking them into account. Protests against the construction of an oil-terminal in Viimsi, near the popular beach resort, failed as well due to economic interests on the oil-lobby side and also the possibility of corruption among relevant authorities.
During the last year, there have been several successful public participation cases developed.
Permanent and stubborn protests in May 1994 led to the loading of unpacked peat in Pärnu River Port being stopped. Campaigns by the Estonian Green Movement against traffic in the old town of Tallinn have resulted in limitations in this field. According to the regulation of Tallinn municipality, tickets must be bought to drive a car in the old town. Bicycle tours against various Soviet Military bases brought large numbers of citizens together and played a significant role in the departure of the Soviet troops from Estonia. The phasing out of radioactive elements used in lighthouses and protests against building a nuclear power station in 1993 were good examples of protest meetings and actions as well. In Tartu, protests were organized against the Raadi military air field and petitions were presented to local authorities 1989. The air field was eventually closed following the departure of the last Russian troops from Estonia in August 1994.
Public awareness raising events have been organized by the Estonian Green Movement, introducing the environmental problems of a certain region. The events include protest meetings as well. So far, five big Bike-Tours have been organized, attended by thousands of bikers each. The first one, in 1988, introduced the acute environmental problems in North Eastern Estonia (Virumaa), the second one dealt with pollution caused by mining and processing oil-shale. The third bike tour invaded a closed military training area in Central Estonia (Korvemaa), where big forested areas were damaged by the Soviet Army. A fourth tour protested against the military nuclear reactors in Paldiski and promoted bike-use in Tallinn, the fifth tour was dedicated to nature conservation and social problems caused by the separation of South Eastern Estonian regions (Petserimaa) to Russia and the last one in 1994 introduced the problem of using local fuels (peat and Wood) for energy production as well as the protection of the Baltic Sea.
While the activities of NGOs have decreased compared to five years ago, international cooperation with foreign organizations seems to be stable. NGO representatives are more and more elected into local governments. Relatively free access to media channels should be outlined is one of the major developments in this field. Discussions between NGOs and government have covered the National Environmental Action Plan and other policy document. Several protests and petitions against environmentally harmful activities have brought positive results. As the latest positive trend, the foundation of an environmental Advocates Center can be mentioned.
Regarding the legal tools of public participation, NGOs point out the lack of time to elaborate the necessary legislation, while investors have already realized their environmentally unfriendly projects. Senior governmental officers stress the need to find more local and foreign specialists as well as finances for elaborating new laws and improving the "old" ones. MPs are calling attention to the fact that the adoption of legislative acts of framework laws is too slow.
The main obstacles for using non-formal tools for public participation in Estonia could be considered to be the same, as the obstacles for using legal avenues. In the first place, lack of proactive approach from Estonian people as well as environmental NGOs must be stressed, accompanied by lack of knowledge and skills in using non-formal public participation methods. In the second place, insufficient cooperation between NGOs, and NGOs and the public must be mentioned. It seems that government officials (at least central ones) are already trained to be more open to non-formal methods of public participation, while the public/citizens need to be educated more to use them. The green lobby exists, but it is too weak and the same must be said about the role of the media in supporting non-legal public participation avenues. In some cases, the media has even expressed a negative attitude towards non-formal public participation activities, for example, when there was a protest meeting at the Russian military base in Tallinn, and green slogans were written on the fences surrounding it. But the reason, could have been that it coincided with important official negotiations concerning liquidation of the base and was not favoring the latter.
Regarding non-formal tools, the biggest barriers are the low level of organization and inactivity of people, together with lack of money, limited funding. MPs were of the opinion that Green Movement has become out-dated, as it was originally just a protest against occupation. On-going economic reforms have decreased the interest of public towards environmental protection. Public participation cannot be forced, but can be achieved only if there is an interest. The belief that nothing could be changed initiated at grass-root level has been inherited from the previous regime. A certain lack of trust between authorities and the public exists. The older generation of authorities are unwilling to talk to the public and are not interested in its opinion. NGOs are not organized enough and their cooperation is insufficient. Their interests have very much been concerned with foreign contacts. They have also been blamed for considering campaigning against the felling of tropical rain forests more important than advising citizens on public participation methods.
In the following, the tasks and roles of different target groups reflecting the major needs to promote public participation in environmental decisionmaking are proposed. The first and foremost measure should be awareness rising at all levels of population, but this should be accompanied by better financing of the related activities. In parallel, legislation should be amended with public participation provisions with the future perspectives. After some time the situation will change and economic problems will not be the only dominating questions attracting the attention of public.
Parliament should spend less time on discussions on daily economical and political problems and put more emphasis on adoption of laws instead of redrafting them. The task of parliament should be to continue the adoption of improved laws and legislation containing public participation provisions and to separate more finances from the state budget to support public access to environmental information. Information centers should be well developed at local level. Lack of prioritization of environmental issues, caused by organizational and institutional short-comings, having far-reaching effects on technological and other related developments should be recognized at parliamentary level. One explanation for the present situation could be that cost calculations connected with production, transportation and consumption have been too narrow because they have rarely included environmental damage, in even general terms. At governmental level, a sound economic policy must be established, competent authority exercised during applications for effluent permits as well as the supervision and control of pollution activities must be established. Sound and lasting rules and unequivocal legal demands create a stable basis for pollution control, but sufficient time must also be given for the proper development and testing of new treatment facilities to assure an optimal degree of efficiency and maintenance under practical operating condition. Government should continue the fulfillment of laws considering NGOs as partners in their work and supporting them financially. Governmental actions should include gaining and giving information, planning perspectives and issuing regulations for the future.
There is still a big communication gap between science and policy-making. While information about threats to our environment is fairly widely disseminated, the same cannot be said for measures to be taken to deal with those threats.
Business operations have substantial negative influence on the quality of the environment. Still, "market oriented" factors are emerging e.g. growing demands for better work environments, consumer requirements for environmentally friendly products. Business will face more stringent regulatory legislation. Business should realize and respect the public's legitimate interest and the real public concern about the potential environmental and health effects of their operations. They have to respond to these concerns by openness and trust with the local communities and the public which could be affected by its activities. Public and community relations are key elements in environmental and product stewardship and active business participation contributes to both the short and long-term success in business operations. If information cannot be disclosed, the company should explain why. While companies are developing their communication program, top management should actively support and be involved in its implementation. A person should be designated responsible for contacting the public, local community concerned should be defined and an inventory of local community contacts be compiled.
The media is the main source of information for the public. In addition to reporting objectively facts on environmental problems, it should play a bigger role in convincing people that even small individual actions can have a great influence on the decisionmaking process. Environmental reporters should make special efforts to educate themselves to be able to help educate readers and to become a "watchdog" in terms of investigative journalism.
The basic principles for trade unions are to promote "clean technologies", concern for the safety of working places and surrounding environment, enabling all employees to improve their education, encouraging the administration to do their best and surveillance over environmental audits, establishing emergency plans for the employees (public) in case of disaster. For that reason, they should be properly informed about all issues concerning the enterprise, they should be involved in decisionmaking concerning new developments, have access to reports submitted to the MoE and participate in training courses. Trade unions should participate actively in various hierarchy levels.
Non-governmental organizations should become more active and more open to cooperation, they should pay more attention to national problems. The role of NGOs is to encourage the government by advocating realistic environmental strategies, being both a partner and opposition. Communication between state authorities and NGOs should be more constructive, each criticism should be followed by a recommendation. Representatives of NGOs should attend conferences and public meetings as observers, with the possibility to make written contributions to any of those, especially the ones related to international environmental conventions. NGOs should take no political stand except that of protection of the environment, they should act independently of the influence of any government, group or individual, and follow the principle of non-violence. Their form of working should include well argued statements addressed to national policy-makers, networking, providing assistance and services to citizens in public participation matters, supporting citizens initiatives. NGO groups must learn to raise funds and be self-sustainable. Of course, their activities should have legal guaranties and the Estonian parliament and government should recognize the reason to finance non-formal groups.
Citizens must be more aware in environmental matters and become more active. As one of the NGOs expressed, "a good catastrophe is needed to awaken peoples interest again". They should recognize their substantial influence on environmental policy through green consumerism and household waste sorting habits. Although everybody is concerned about dangers to individual health and the need for unspoiled local environment, it is not understood yet that organizing civic groups helps to join forces to fight for individual rights. As the first step, consumer protection associations should be organized and product quality standards elaborated. Public awareness and participation should be increased by means of full recognition and legal protection of the environmental rights of individuals, groups and organizations, as well as by unrestricted access to environmental information and comprehensive environmental education. New generation should be taught to respect and care for the community life, responsible for their own environment and to improve individual attitudes.