{"id":58194,"date":"2026-02-25T14:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/?post_type=resource&#038;p=58194"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:34:17","slug":"cr_forestlaw_1998","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/resource\/cr_forestlaw_1998","title":{"rendered":"Sentencia 07294-1998, Sala Constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Justicia Sala Constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Costa Rica (13 de Octubre del 1998)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a decision from 1998, <a href=\"https:\/\/nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr\/document\/sen-1-0007-82653\">Sentencia 07294-1998<\/a>, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica considered a request to declare Article 71 of the Forestry Law unconstitutional, with petitioners arguing that the provision was contrary to the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment found in Article 50 of the Constitution of Costa Rica because it implied a reduction of a protective zone. The court struck down the law, and explained that the principle of non-regression applies to the enjoyment of this right, and as the Constitution is supreme over ordinary legislation, the legislature\u2019s attempt to shrink the protected area must fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Notably, the Court <em>did not<\/em> hold that this principle of non-regression was automatic or absolute, and explicitly rejected the idea that all efforts to undo environmental protections would be unconstitutional. Instead, the Court explained, \u201cTo reduce the size of any wild protected area, the Legislative Assembly must do so based on sufficient technical studies necessary to determine that such action will not cause harm to or endanger the environment, and therefore, will not jeopardize the [constitutional right to a healthy environment].\u201d (Machine translated. Refer to official copy for original language.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As there was no technical study to justify the legislative provision, the Court determined that the provision was contrary to Article 50 of the Constitution, which declares the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, and therefore annulled it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a decision from 1998, Sentencia 07294-1998, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica considered a request to declare Article 71 of the Forestry Law unconstitutional, with petitioners arguing that the provision was contrary to the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment found in Article 50 of the Constitution of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","resource-topic":[47,71,95,2025],"resource-type":[528],"resource-category":[30097],"content-for-websites":[30103],"region":[534,568],"class_list":["post-58194","resource","type-resource","status-publish","hentry","resource-topic-constitutions","resource-topic-forests","resource-topic-protected-areas","resource-topic-right-to-healthy-environment","resource-type-cases","resource-category-legal","content-for-websites-notable-cases","region-central-america","region-costa-rica"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource\/58194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/resource"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"resource-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-topic?post=58194"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-type?post=58194"},{"taxonomy":"resource-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-category?post=58194"},{"taxonomy":"content-for-websites","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-for-websites?post=58194"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elaw.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=58194"}],"curies":[{"name":"gracias","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}