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Date Published: 13/07/2022

ARCHIVED - Mar Menor ILP law adds new articles expressly aimed at holding politicians to account

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The new environmental law will force politicians to act to save the Mar Menor and allow anyone to sue them if they don’t

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Mar Menor ILP law adds new articles expressly aimed at holding politicians to account

The Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) petition which was signed by 639,826 people with the aim of converting the Mar Menor into a legal person with its own rights, will today officially become the Law of Recognition of the Legal Personality of the Mar Menor.

The Commission for Ecological Transition of the Congress of Deputies yesterday drafted its opinion after debating the amendments presented to the original text by the leftist parliamentary groups of PSOE, Unidas Podemos, Más País and Ciudadanos. The Commission will meet again today, when Spain’s State of the Nation Debate is over, to give the final approval to the legislation, which will then continue to be processed in the Senate.

The legislative proposal has undergone a series of modifications with respect to the original text that entered the Lower House. One of the main changes is a new article, number 7, which establishes that public administrations “at all territorial levels” are obliged “to develop public policies and systematic actions for prevention, early warning, protection, precaution, to prevent human activities from leading to the extinction of the biodiversity of the Mar Menor”.

Effectively, this amendment legally forces politicians and those in public office to prevent further contamination of the Mar Menor, as happened in the past.

They are also ordered to “immediately restrict those activities that could lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems or the permanent alteration of natural cycles” and to “prohibit or limit the introduction of organisms, and organic and inorganic material, that could definitively alter the biological heritage of the Mar Menor”.

Likewise, article 6, which established who would have the power to exercise popular action in defence of the ecosystem against any aggression, will finally state that “any natural or legal person will be entitled to defend the ecosystem of the Mar Menor, and can enforce the rights and prohibitions of this Law and the provisions that develop it through an action filed in the corresponding court or corresponding public administration”.

This means that anyone can bring a court case against those who pollute the lagoon or otherwise endanger its ecosystem. In addition, someone who brings the legal action on behalf of the Mar Menor and whose claim is upheld will be entitled to recover the full cost of the litigation, including, among other things, the fees for lawyers, solicitors, experts and witnesses.

The platform that promoted the ILP yesterday expressed its “gratitude” to all those people and organisations that supported the initiative from the beginning. “The Mar Menor will only be saved with our help, that of the citizens,” they declared.

Image: ILP