Filenews 5 August 2024 - by Angelos Nicolaou
The Council of Ministers decided today to tighten penalties and regulate offenses related to lighting fires and causing fires, following a joint proposal by the Ministers of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Interior and Justice and Public Order.
For the offence of causing fire, penalties (imprisonment / fine) are increased for forest amendment bills from 10 years and/or €50,000 to 12 years and/or €100,000, for rural areas from 5 years and/or €20,000 to 10 years and/or €75,000 and for municipalities/communities bills from 3 months and/or €860 (for burning within municipal boundaries) to 8 years and/or €50,000.
The reason for the revision and modernization of the legislative framework on fires was the deadly fire in Arakapas on July 3, 2021, where 55 square kilometers were destroyed in a perimeter of 40 kilometers, with the firestorm leaving behind four dead, damages of €15 million. in houses and premises, property and agricultural crops were lost and the electricity network of the area was destroyed. A 69-year-old man was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the fire and found guilty of the offences of burning a plantation and lighting a fire in the countryside.
One week after the catastrophic fire, the Legal Service, after examining the legislative framework governing the offences in relation to lighting fires, came to specific findings: a) Offences relating to arson, lighting a fire, causing a fire and other related offences are scattered in a number of legislations. b) Some of the criminal conduct mentioned overlaps or is found in more than one piece of legislation. c) There is inconsistency regarding the level of penalties provided for in relation to and the seriousness of the criminal conduct criminalized in each offence.
According to the Legal Service, the above causes problems both in the application of laws and in the establishment of criminal cases in the courts. In addition, they also call into question the clarity and legal certainty that must distinguish particularly criminal legislation and undermine the preventive function that such legislation must perform. Furthermore, he notes, the involvement of various Services and Departments with responsibility for the implementation of the relevant legislation and the various powers that each Department has regarding the prevention and suppression of fires requires a comprehensive view of the legislation, so that similar circumstances are uniformly regulated and distinct circumstances are subject to the corresponding differentiated regulation.
In the six amending bills that have been prepared, the legislative framework is revised and modernized and the offences of endangerment are universally separated from offenses, resulting in. In particular, there are considerably higher penalties, especially for offences with a result, compared to the existing provisions.
Also, the bills set fixed amounts of out-of-court settlement for endangerment offenses and depending on the offense and the time it was committed, the amounts vary and become stricter than the existing procedures. Today, in the Forest Laws there is no fixed amount of out-of-court settlement, but it is left to the discretion of the Director of the Department of Forests to determine the amount of the extrajudicial settlement, limiting the maximum amount to €2,000. With the amendment of the legislation, the minimum amount of extrajudicial settlement is set at €500 and the maximum at €3,000 for endangerment offences and is no longer left to the discretion of the Director of the Department of Forests.
