How Cases Come to Court
The Environment Court is a specialist institution within the New Zealand Court system. As well as fulfilling a primary function as a 'court', the Environment Court has a pivotal role in the resource management process. The Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) confers primary powers on local authorities and the court. In general, policies are decided locally and are interpreted by the court. The Environment Court's workload is largely generated by decisions of local authorities. It is essentially an appellate court. So by the time disputes get to the Environment Court, many parties will have already been through a number of formal processes, some involving experts. The work of the court is predominantly plan appeals and resource consent appeals. The court considers matters afresh and it is the first point in the RMA process where matters of fact and law are tackled in a partly adversarial/partly inquisitorial court setting with both cross-examination and earlier exchange of written statements (and rebuttal) taking place.
The Resource Management Act 1991
Under this Act the Environment Court has jurisdiction to determine:
- Appeals about the contents of regional and district statements and plans. Appeals arising out of applications for resource consent. The consent applied for may be for a land use, for subdivision, a coastal permit, a water permit, or a discharge permit; or a combination of those.
- Designations authorising public works such as energy projects, hospitals, schools, prisons, sewerage works, refuse landfills, fire stations, major roads and bypasses; and also major private projects, for example dairy factories, tourist resorts, timber mills and shopping centres.
- Classifications of waters, water permits for dams and diversions, taking of geothermal fluids, discharges from sewerage works, underground mines; maximum and minimum levels of lakes and flows of rivers, and minimum quality standards; and water conservation orders.
- Land subdivision approvals and conditions, development levies, carparking contributions, reserve contributions, development levy fund distributions, road upgrading contributions, regional roads, limited access roads, and stopping roads.
- Environmental effects of prospecting, exploration, and mining, including underground, open pit and alluvial mining.
- Enforcement proceedings (including interim enforcement orders), declarations about the legal status of environmental activities and instruments, existing and proposed, and appeals against abatement notices.
- Applications for declarations concerning decisions of Councils relating to the non-notification of resource consent applications. (Jurisdiction yet to be brought into force by order in council).
Other statutes under which the Court has jurisdiction include:
- Historic Places Act 1993 - appeals about archaeological sites
- Forests Act 1949 - appeals about felling beech forests
- Local Government Act 1974 - objections to road stopping proposals
- Transit New Zealand Act 1989 - objections regarding access to limited access roads
- Electricity Act 1992 - disputes over access to private land to maintain existing electrical transmission lines
- Crown Minerals Act 1991 - administration of existing privilages
- Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claim Settlement Act 2004 - appeals against allocation decisions of regional councils
- Biosecurity Act 1993 - appeals about regional pest strategies
- Public Works Act 1981 - objections to notices of taking of land
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