Environmental Law

1. Inspectors appointed pursuant to a decision by the Minister or the chairman of the board of directors of the competent authority, as the case may be, shall collectively or individually detect, investigate, and record violations of this Law and regulations. The regulations shall determine the inspectors’ work procedures, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph (2) of this Article and Article 42 of this Law. 2. The inspector shall coordinate with the supervisory authority prior to accessing any facility for the purpose of inspection, review of its records and data, and detection of any violations. The regulations shall determine the necessary procedures and classification of the facilities covered by this paragraph. 3. The inspector shall have the power to: a) collect samples of materials and items from the facility suspected of violating this Law and the regulations, if necessary, provided a report that includes all data necessary to indicate the source of the samples, materials, and items is prepared, and a copy of the facility’s records and data is retained, as specified by the regulations; b) retrieve and deal with the seized products of the vegetation cover or wildlife, as specified by the regulations, without prejudice to the penalties prescribed in Articles 38 and 40 of this Law; and c) seize, at the expense of the violator if the violation is established, the vehicles and tools used, or suspected to have been used, in committing the violation, and hand them over to the competent authority as seized items, provided the matter is brought before the competent court within a period not exceeding seven days, to uphold or cancel the seizure, as specified by the regulations. 4. An inspector shall not be prevented or impeded from carrying out inspection and seizure duties, and shall present his job identification card when doing so. Environmental Law 5. Without prejudice to paragraph (2) of this Article and subject to the regulations, the Minister or the board of directors of the competent authority, as the case may be, may issue a decision to outsource to specialized companies certain inspection and violation detection tasks of an administrative nature.