His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the State, in his capacity as Ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, issued Law No. (10) of 2020 amending some provisions of Law No. (16) of 2005 regarding the reorganization of the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, according to which the authority was granted greater oversight authority To enable her to play her role in preserving the environment and biological diversity in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi more effectively.
According to the new law, after approval by the Executive Council, the authority has the right to issue a schedule of administrative fines for environmental violations, where the value of fines reaches 10 million dirhams, after the ceiling of fines reached 10 thousand dirhams. The authority was also given the authority to impose new administrative sanctions, such as drawing attention, placing the facilities under financial, administrative and technical supervision, and temporarily or permanently closing the facilities, as well as suspending the activity temporarily. The new law also included amending the provisions and procedures for conciliation of violations, in terms of the rate of reduction of violations and the time required for that, as well as grievance procedures for administrative sanctions.
The law stipulated that without prejudice to any more severe punishment stipulated by another law, an administrative fine of no more than 10 million dirhams shall be imposed on anyone who violates the provisions of this law, its organizational and executive regulations, systems, policies, decisions and circulars implementing it. The Authority will collect the administrative fines, and the Authority’s Board of Directors will issue - after approval of the Executive Council - a table specifying the violations and administrative fines prescribed for each of them.
The new law gave the authority the authority to present a conciliation to the violator, provided that this is proven in the minutes of the procedures, and the violator who accepts the reconciliation must pay a fine equivalent to (75%) of the total administrative fine set for the violation within a period not exceeding 60 days from the date of offering the reconciliation to him. In all cases, if the violator does not commit to removing the violation on the specified date, the Authority shall remove it at the expense of the violator. The organizational and executive regulations of this law specify the conciliation procedures, including the time period.