Bergama-Ovacik gold mine right to the environment-administrative responsability

The lawsuit for anulment of the approval of the Ministry of Environment dated on 19th October 1994 for the gold mining by cyanide leaching method near the Ovacık village of Bergama district of İzmir in Western Turkey, was the first step of a legal process that would be called later as ?Bergama Case?. The decision of rejection of the administrative court was overturned by the Turkish Council of State, and the administrative court complied to the annulment. By that ruling the higher court constituted a new jurisprudence concerning the right to environment. While the public debate on the processing method used in Bergama Gold mine is still alive, new mining activities which have been starting around Turkey, proliferated the disagreements, the basis of which is the right to environment. In this paper the issue was studied under three chapters: In the first chapter the legal regime of mining was considered in the framework of the regulation in force as compared to the former legislation. The topic of environmental impact assessment was considered under this chapter because of its connection with the mining regime and although it is also included in the Turkish Law of Environment. Second chapter was devoted to the study of the right to environment within the above mentioned legal process. In the third and last chapter, the results of the failure of the government to execute the final court decisions were taken into consideration. The subject of administrative responsibility included in last part should not be considered only on the basis of indemnification of the damages resulting from the failure of the government to execute the court decisions. Because, the indemnification here is not a ?result? but a ?sanction?. The failure in the execution of a court decision, above all, results in a violation of the rule of law. Keywords : Right to the environment, environmental law, environmental impact assessment, administrative responsability, mining