Bucharest, 29 January 2024 – Agent Green is deeply dissatisfied and concerned about the performance of DNA and the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) in the Arthur case.
On 25 September 2023, DNA denied Agent Green access to the case file on Arthur the bear (317/P/2021), killed by a prince from Liechtenstein with the help of the corrupt Romanian state. Agent Green was forced to report DNA to ICCJ. This led to case 2759/1/2023: Agent Green against DNA.
But ICCJ’s C19 CP panel rejected Agent Green’s complaint this month and ordered the organisation to pay court costs to the state. The decision is final and represents the end of the road in Romania.
“From the ICCJ decision, we understand that although Agent Green is the reporting party in the DNA case, the organisation cannot have the status of an injured party. Consequently, bears cannot be injured parties either, because they lack the capacity to exercise rights. This interpretation by ICCJ indicates behaviour according to which the state would own public property. But in reality the state is not the owner; it administers it for the public benefit and cannot make decisions without consulting the public. Furthermore, the state has an obligation to provide the public both with access to information of public interest and with access to justice. In other words, the state has no right to dispose of public property. For example, it cannot decide to shoot bears or other animals, cut down forests or concrete over rivers as it pleases,” said Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green.
In view of ICCJ’s final decision, Agent Green is reporting this supreme court in Romania to the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention within UNECE (the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe).
