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) for the year 2020 to amend some provisions of Law No. (16) for the year 2005 regarding the reorganization of the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, whereby the authority was granted greater oversight authority to enable it It plays its role in preserving the environment and biological diversity in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi more effectively.

According to the new law, the authority has the right, after approval by the Executive Council, 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, temporarily or permanently closing the installations, and 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 necessary period for that, as well as grievance procedures against administrative sanctions.

The law stipulated that without prejudice to any more severe punishment stipulated by another law, an administrative fine of no more than ten 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 the 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 has to pay a fine equivalent to (75%) of the total administrative fine set for the violation within a period of more than sixty 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 reconciliation procedures, including the period of time.

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