| Summary: | 碩士 === 萬能科技大學 === 環境工程研究所 === 104 === This study aims mainly to explore how to supervise environmental scriveners, who have appeared in response to the pollution prevention system and the needs of the industry, under the management system resulting from the environmental protection laws and regulations. The key measures of the current pollution prevention system are the prior review and the certification mechanism. however, because of the demands of the industry and the consideration about costs, many documents have actually been written by scriveners instead of professional environmental engineer as required by law. This causes the problems of poor quality of certification reports, insufficient facilities for pollution prevention, environmental pollution and confusion about who should be supervised. By studying the existing environmental laws and regulations and the state of their actual implementation, the author intends to find out whether it is feasible to legalize environmental scriveners at the current stage by giving them a proper title and specifying the qualifications for their practice. Meanwhile, questionnaires were distributed to the industry, government agencies, scholars and related interest groups for a survey, in hopes that some initial proposals may be put forward concerning the legalization of environmental scriveners at the current stage.
Firstly, in terms of law, considering the Constitution’s guaranteeing of the citizens’ occupations, if the legislators intend to specify how, when, where one can engage in an occupation as well as whom they can serve and what knowledge and ability they should have, such requirements for their qualifications must be based primarily on the concern about the interests and welfare of the general public. As the environmental pollution issues have no boundaries or specific targets, they would affect the general public. Therefore, on the premise of guaranteeing the welfare of the people and protecting the environment, making a law to stipulate the qualifications for a certain occupation does not violate the Constitution’s provisions regarding the protection of the people’s right to work. In practice, reference may be made to such precedents as the regulations for the Certified Public Bookkeeper. Environmental protection authorities have also set their requirements for the qualifications of related specialists. Therefore, this is legally feasible.
According to the survey, which adopts a five-point system, it is found that in the category of legalization of environmental scriveners, the average score reaches 3.78 points, which means the majority of the groups surveyed agree that aforesaid legalization may improve the quality of environmental documents, speed up the review and enhance the effectiveness of the environmental protection work. They all take a positive attitude toward said legalization.
The views held by different groups on most of the issues do not show significant differences statistically. The more significant difference lies in whether they agree that a scrivener should be given a legal title and that the scope of his/her practice should be specified. Most of the groups think positively about this. Only the environmental engineers have a remarkably reserved attitude toward it. The level of their approval of either of these two items is lower than 3 points, which means their attitude is neutral and reserved, that is, they don’t agree. This is close to our anticipation.
As for the formulation of the qualifications of an environmental scrivener, the author suggests that the environmental scrivener should meet requirements that are similar to those for the investigator of soil contamination; however, the control of their qualifications and the requirements for their tasks, rights and obligations should be stricter. Besides, environmental scriveners would be responsible to control the quality of the environmental documents at the beginning of the process, having a responsibility similar to that of a professional environmental engineer. As a result, the scrivener and the environmental engineer would work together to control the quality of the application documents at the beginning and the end of the process. To adopt the requirements for the investigator of soil contamination has actual advantages. Firstly, the content and nature of these two jobs are quite similar. Secondly, there will be precedents to refer to when related laws and regulations are being formulated and implemented. Thirdly, in practice, the report submitted by an investigator of soil contamination proves to be better in quality than other kinds of documents. Therefore, it seems feasible to formulate the rules in this direction.
The environmental scrivener arose in response to the environmental policy of the government and the demands of the industry. However, the lack of effective management and guidance by policies has resulted in many problems and a negative impact on the environment. Apparently, to solve these problems, we cannot ask for a quick remedy. Only management at different levels can solve the problems more effectively. Therefore, in addition to asking the enterprises to enhance the abilities of their specialists and urging the certifying environmental engineer to adhere to the ethical standards of their profession, we may make the environmental scrivener legally qualified and specifically define the scope of their business as well as their duties and obligations. According to the opinions of the general public, this may well be a more effective solution.
Keyword：Environmental scrivener，Agency industry，Environmental policy，Legalization
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