ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY OF LEGAL ENTITIES: ADMISSIBILITY OF CRIMINAL SANCTIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES

Abstract

Among the many aspects of Environmental Law, this study focuses on criminal imputation in conduct and activities harmful to the environment, more specifically the constitutional perspective of the criminal liability of private legal entities in environmental crimes, with a focus on the jurisprudential understanding of the Superior Courts in environmental matters. The aim of the research is to analyze the jurisprudential understanding in force in the Brazilian legal system on the criminal liability of Legal Entities in crimes against the environment. This is bibliographical research combined with documentary research, with a qualitative approach and descriptive nature, with a jurisprudential analysis of the opinions of the Superior Courts regarding the interpretation of art. 225, § 3⁰, of the 1988 Federal Constitution and the theory of double imputation in environmental crimes. The results show that both the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) and the Supreme Federal Court (STF) have held that criminal liability in environmental crimes is also applicable to collective corporate entities. It can be concluded that, on the other hand regarding the requirement of individual conviction as a prerequisite for establishing the environmental criminal liability of Legal Entities, unlike the STJ which considered unconstitutional the possibility of criminal liability of Legal Entities in environmental crimes without the conviction of the Individual, in the STF's understanding the criminal liability of corporate entities does not depend on the conviction of the Individual in harmful conduct and criminal actions against the environment. .