Administrative Court, “Srisuwan” sues the Director-General of the Department of Fisheries and the Minister of Agriculture for neglecting their duties by allowing big investors to cause the “Black-chinned Tilapia” to spread.
Mr. Srisuwan Janya, leader of the organization Love the Nation, Love the Country, as a representative of the fishermen who are suffering, traveled to file a lawsuit against the Director-General of the Department of Fisheries, the Fisheries Biosafety and Diversity Committee (IBC), and the Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives on charges of abuse of discretion and neglect of duty by allowing big investors to import black-chinned tilapia, which is an alien species, into the country, causing a widespread outbreak, causing total damage to fishermen worth tens of billions of baht. This is considered the most serious environmental crime in the country at the moment. Both the Fisheries Department, the Fisheries Biosafety and Diversity Committee (IBC), and the Minister of Agriculture and Coope
ratives do not hold the importers, the source of the problem, accountable, but instead use the people’s tax money to solve the problem.
Mr. Srisuwan said that the fishermen who are suffering and have been damaged have come to ask the organization to help take care of the matter and not let the Department of Fisheries and big investors get away with it. The organization will then file a lawsuit with the Central Administrative Court to have the court strictly enforce the law to punish the big private sector, the cause of the problem, and make them responsible for all the damages to the fishermen and order the big investors to restore the lost aquatic resources to their original state.
Mr. Srisuwan reiterated that the Department of Fisheries knew about the problems that occurred from the beginning, but neglected to enforce the law seriously and promptly, without rushing to take action against the big capitalists who imported the fish, but instead used the tax money of the people nationwide to solve the problem
continuously, tens of billions of baht, even though according to the environmental law, Section 97, the Department of Fisheries can file a civil lawsuit to claim for damages to natural resources and the environment that were damaged, including using the Criminal Code, Section 360, in conjunction with Section 56, to file a lawsuit in the Criminal Court to take action against the big capitalists because the law clearly states that anyone who damages, destroys, depreciates or renders useless property used or kept for public benefit shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding 5 years or a fine not exceeding 100,000 baht, or both. However, throughout the period when the black-chinned tilapia began to spread since 2012 until fishermen filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2017, the Department of Fisheries and its group did not seriously and promptly prevent and solve the problem, until the fish spread out of control. Solving the problem today is only the end of the problem.
Source: Th
ai News Agency