On 13 August 2024, the State Council issued a decision to suspend the government’s 29 May 2024 decision granting cement companies an illegal privilege to operate their quarries and crushers for an entire year. Decision no. 270 of 2023-2024 was issued during the judicial recess by the State Council’s First Chamber, composed of presiding judge Youssef Gemayel and auxiliary judges Rania Abu Zain and Rayan Roumani. It stemmed from a case that the Legal Agenda had filed in cooperation with environmental associations Earth Will and Green Line. Subsequently, the Legal Agenda would like to emphasize the following:

• The decision once again confirms the State Council’s commitment to confronting the government’s collusion with cement companies to violate the laws protecting the environment, air, and water and Decree no. 8803, which governs quarries and crushers. It had already expressed this commitment in four previous decisions issued on 19 January 2022, 20 January 2022, 15 March 2022, and 20 April 2023.

• We call upon the government to implement the decision immediately and without delay in order to preserve legality and public order and pursuant to the separation of powers. We also call upon it once more to rescind its contested decision. In this regard, we must remind the government that according to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Environment and the Lebanese Army, the cement companies have caused billions of dollars’ worth of environmental damage and that to this day, they have acknowledged no responsibility to provide compensation or rehabilitate the damaged sites. Hence, granting them any privilege to compound this damage is akin to conspiring against the people – the source of power – in favor of influential persons.

• We call upon Parliament’s Environment Committee to take up this issue, without any delay, in order to ensure that the government complies with this decision and to fulfill its role in protecting the environment and legality.

• We call upon all traditional and nontraditional media outlets to shoulder their responsibility to protect the environment and legality by circulating the State Council’s decision and pressuring the government to implement it. Hopefully this time, society will succeed in defending itself against violation of its fundamental interests, crime, and lawlessness.

To Read The Statement in Arabic