Environment Minister Maximiliano Proaño said that the appeal would be based on the fact that “both the session of the Committee of Ministers on December 23, 2024, and that of January 8 of this year, complied with the December ruling of the First Environmental Court.”
After the First Environmental Court of Antofagasta ordered the Committee of Ministers to vote again on the mining port project, the Government has now filed an appeal against this latest resolution.
This is after the Court confirmed that the Committee's latest ruling was made after the deadline and with new grounds for rejection not previously contemplated.
Following this decision, the Executive announced that the ruling would be appealed. The acting Minister of the Environment, Maximiliano Proaño, said that the appeal would be based on the fact that “both the session of the Committee of Ministers on December 23, 2024, and that of January 8 of this year, complied with the December ruling of the First Environmental Court.”
"The ministerial committee met, reviewed its composition and made a decision regarding the Dominga project, in accordance with the law and the ruling of the Environmental Court itself," the authority added.
Government appeals court ruling on Dominga project
In its appeal, the Government claims that “the payment exception filed by the Executive Directorate of the SEA was illegally rejected,” given that the Committee of Ministers “complied in a timely manner with what was ordered by the final judgment,” states the appeal cited by Diario Financiero .
Furthermore, it points out that the Environmental Court's order to repeat the vote for Dominga is "illegal in two ways", because on the one hand it orders the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) "to modify a resolution of a collegiate body, and to rule on the environmental qualification of a project", which only the Committee can do, the Government maintains.
Furthermore, the appeal maintains that “the Court's actions openly violate Article 20 of Law No. 19,300 and the Political Constitution of the Republic,” in line with what was previously stated.
And regarding the actions of the Committee of Ministers, the appeal states that this body "fully complied with the order of the final judgment, and even accuses the Environmental Court of ordering the Committee "to resolve in a certain way" the future of Dominga.
