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Section 1: Introduction

The Ministry for the Environment commissioned this report on prosecutions under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA/the Act) as part of its monitoring function.

This report analyses 171 of the prosecutions undertaken during the period 1 July 2001 to 30 April 2005 (ie, cases that were heard or finalised during this period). Some of these prosecutions arose from one incident but resulted in sentences being imposed against a number of different defendants. It is important to acknowledge that in some cases different defendants have different levels of responsibility for an offence/s and in others not all persons or companies are brought to court for some reason (eg, because they can not be found). These factors are reflected in sentencing and levels of penalty. The data for this report was inputted into a database using a separate form for each defendant unless two or more defendants were related and where the court took this into consideration when sentencing (eg, a company and the director of the company).

The 171 prosecutions analysed are all prosecutions for offences where the maximum penalty is a fine of $200,000 or two years imprisonment. Prosecutions that have lower penalties [For example: obstruction of an enforcement officer and contravention of an excessive noise direction.] have not been included because their inclusion adds little to the understanding of activity in the area of prosecutions, and could also distort the main picture of prosecutions activity.

The report also compares the analyses of prosecutions undertaken between 1 July 2001 and 30 April 2005 with analyses of prosecutions undertaken between 1 October 1991 and 30 June 2001. [Report published in May 2002, A Study into the use of Prosecutions under the Resource Management Act 1991, ME number 440.] The analyses of prosecutions in the period 1 July 2001 to 30 April 2005 is referred to in this report as the 'second period'. The analyses of prosecutions in the period 1 October 1991 to 30 June 2001 is referred to in this report as the 'first period'. The first period comprises nine years and eight months and analyses 375 prosecutions. The second period comprises three years and 10 months and analyses 171 prosecutions.

The report looks at:

  • the sectors and general activities
  • individual local authority prosecution rates
  • the outcomes of prosecutions including the number of unsuccessful prosecutions
  • the use of sentencing options
  • the average fine
  • costs
  • identification of sector for the 30 highest fines
  • appeals on sentences.

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