Abstract

The present paper approaches the relationship between the State and the environment, aiming to evaluate the inquiries opened by the Public Ministry of the State of São Paulo (MPSP) and by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) of Jales, of the 24th and 37th Federal Judiciary Subsection, the coercion and the sanction of environmental crimes of acts and/or omissions of municipal public agents (mayors) in the face of the administrative improbity law, arising from environmental damage. The study was carried out by collecting data from the MPSP and MPF from 48 municipalities in the northwest region of São Paulo, in procedures opened from January 2008 to August 2021 whose defendants were mayors and municipalities. After data collection, there was a tabulation and correlation with the bibliography, the legislation and the found jurisprudence. It has been identified that 120 proceedings were initiated, and the majority of these investigations lead to public civil actions by the MPSP, with most of them being civil inquiries, while the remaining ones were police inquiries. Additionally, the MPF in Jales opened a total of 606 proceedings, and the majority of them evolved into public civil actions. It is concluded that the MPSP of the districts and MPF of Jales have been fulfilling the constitutional duty in environmental protection; however, it was identified that the mayors end up not suffering sanctions from the Administrative Impropriety Law for environmental crimes. It was observed that the main objective of the MPSP and the MPF is the restoration of the damage and not the coercion of the agent who carries out or omits actions that lead to environmental damage.

Keywords:
environment; environmental damage; civil action; public agent