Due to the strengthening of the role of ecological legislation in the world it is necessary to distinguish all institutes that somehow influence on creation of ecologically stable situation in the country, analyze the law provisions that provide the conditions for the development of stable policy in sphere of environmental protection.

Head of the state had put a task to adopt new Ecological Code in 2006. At this moment the last version of draft Ecological Code is on consideration of the Committee On Issues of Ecology and Subsoil Use of the Parliament. Draft Ecological Code foresees the introduction of corrections to the adopted system of environmental protection.

In this article the author would like to review certain provisions of draft Ecological Code related to issues of regulation of the environmental audit and environmental expert examination, influence of novelties of this legislative act to the process of business development of the activity of the subsoil users in Kazakhstan.

Living in a market economy, the information on condition and results of the activity of enterprises is a subject of huge attention from different fields. It is necessary to control the process of economical developments, effectively administer the property, and prevent the negative consequences. To make sure that the company works according to the requirements of the current legislation and objectively reflects the condition and the results of the activity of company, it is important to hire the specialists having sufficient qualification. Historically it is so, that auditors have such knowledge and skills to do so.

Environmental audit as a mechanism of managing the environmental issues was developing in economically prosperous countries such as the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and others during 70s. Application of audit examinations in the field of environmental protection began in the USA mostly by chemical companies in order to prove the observance of strict standards in environmental protection field. At the same time the environmental audit began to be developed as the branch of business activity of ecological industry. During last 10 years in these countries there were developed the conceptions of environmental audit, adopted national standards and normative legislative acts in the field of environmental audit. The basic principles and regulations of environmental audit are stated in Direction of European Union On Environmental Management and Environmental Audit № 1836/893 (EMAS) adopted in 1993. Since 1996 there is the work of international standards of ISO of 14000-14010. 14011. 14012 determining the general principles and procedures of environmental audit, guidelines on its execution.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is not an exception. The amendments related to this institute are merely being inserted to legislation. So, according to article 134 of new draft Ecological Code the environmental audit is an examination of the company on issues of environmental protection of audited subjects in order to reveal, evaluate the ecological risks and development of recommendations on increasing the level of ecological security of its activity, and also on accordance to other criteria of audit.

Draft Ecological Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan also regulates the other institute that ideally shall help the companies-subsoil users to begin the activity. Environmental expert examination — is the determination of conformity of economical and other activity to the quality standards of the environment and ecological requirements, admissibility of realization of the object of examination with the purpose to prevent possible negative influences of this activity to the environment and consequences associated with it. Obviously, the environmental audit differs from environmental expert examination — auditors examine the real industry, though experts mostly deal with the analysis of the documents since the object of the examination usually does not exist yet.

Analyzing the institute of the environmental expert examination it is necessary to note that it is executed in order to limit possible consequences of realization of the planned activity to the environment, observance of the balance of interests of economical development and environmental protection, and also prevent the damage to the third parties during the process of subsoil use. However, to coordinate the programs and documentation on observance of ecological requirements there is not only state, but also public environmental expert examination. What is the public expert examination' It is the type of activity executed on voluntary basis by expert commissions that are created by public associations.

Physical persons or public associations interests of which may be affected in case of realization of the object of public environmental expert examination can be the requestors of the public environmental expert examination. The physical person having scientific and (or) practical knowledge on the issue and being invited by the organizer of public environmental expert examination to execute examination can be the expert of public environmental expert examination.

However, such public consideration of ecological situation is also stated in other institute: environmental impact assessment. Article 45 of the draft Ecological Code requests too many documents to provide for execution of impact assessment. According to the results of executed environmental impact assessment the customer of the planned activity shall also prepare and provide the letter on ecological consequences of planned or rendering activity. It is clear that the provision of all these documents is a ground to prepare a decision on admissibility of realization of planned activity of the company-subsoil user.

The interesting fact is that there is a need of materials on consideration of the public opinion, arranged by minutes, containing the conclusions of public discussion of ecological aspects of the planned activity. The inclusion of such documents may lead to the stoppage of the process of environmental impact assessment, thus to suspend the start of the activity of the company. As you know such procedure was already seen in the process of public environmental expert examination the results of which have recommendation character.

Therefore, there is a necessity to overview these provisions to exclude the duplication of functions of institutes of environmental impact assessment and environmental expert examination. Putting the same goals to different institutions makes the process of receiving the permission to start the examining activity more complicated for a lot of companies. We may suppose that the exclusion of the necessity to collect the documents considering the public opinion from the institute of environmental impact assessment will be justified, reduce the development of bureaucratic processes in the country, considering the fact that there is already not less competent procedure of public environmental expert examination.

State environmental expert examination is executed by authorized body in the field of environmental protection and local executive bodies within its competency. However, we may find another fact to be a little surprising. According to clause 3 article 64 of draft Ecological Code the negative conclusion of state expert examination can not be the subject of controversy in the field of environmental expert examination, though two previous clauses of this article provide the possibility of controversy resolution by negotiations or in the court.

Therefore, the negative conclusion of state expert examination lead to the embargo of realization of examining activity that is the restriction of the personality of legal entity, freedom of business activity.

These rights are stated in article 13 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan where everyone has the right to recognize its personality and protect his or her rights and freedoms by all legal means, including the right for remedy of all the rights and freedoms. That means that clause 3 article 64 of draft Ecological Code limits the right provided by the Constitution

Of everyone for legal protection of its rights, including for remedy.

Infringement of the interests of subsoil users unfortunately can be also seen in provisions on environmental audit. Having reviewed before the definition of the environmental audit, not everyone realizes the purpose of this activity. For any enterprise the environmental audit is first of all the opportunity to develop the nature protection policy and system of environmental management for further certification. Environmental audit makes companies to produce ecologically clean products with the usage of better technologies, so it will be prestigious and economically profitable. For example, in Russia it is almost impossible to receive a loan in banks without having the environmental audit and certification of products.

Let' s look at certain mechanism of work of audit organization with the subject being audited.

So, according to article 140 of draft law the report of obligatory environmental audit shall be sent by environmental audit organization to the authorized body in the field of environmental protection and the head of audited subject. The preliminary review of the representatives of audited subject with the report of obligatory environmental audit is not permitted. After providing to the body the report of obligatory environmental audit, the audit organization provides the audited subject with the invoice on payment of services that should be paid unconditionally. Upon the results of review of the report of obligatory environmental audit the authorized body in the field of environmental protection may bring a suit to the court on stoppage of the activity of the audited subject.

As the continuation of the analysis of new draft Ecological Code we may highlight other provisions that negatively influence on the process of the activity of companies-nature users.

According to article 134 of draft Ecological Code the audited subject is a party of the agreement on execution of environmental audit. Such agreement according to clause 2 article 683 of Civil Procedural Code is an agreement on rendering paid services, according to which the customer or audited subject shall pay for the services executed by audit company. And if the customer puts all the efforts for conclusion and execution of the agreement, including the payment of audit services, these efforts certainly shall not be in vain. Application of such action as the stoppage of the work of the audited subject as a result of environmental audit is unfair. It would be better if the body of ecological control that receives the report of environmental auditor had obliged the audited company to eliminate the revealed violations during certain period of time.

Clause 5 article 147 of draft Ecological Code may be found surprising according to which the environmental auditors and environmental audit organizations are obliged to inform authorized state bodies on violations of environmental law revealed during the process of obligatory environmental audit. SO, there is a question now, how the institute of environmental audit will exist in case of inclusion of this provision to the draft Ecological Code' How effective there will be an agreement with the environmental audit organization if it is impossible to discuss all conditions of cooperation in the agreement on rendering of the services'

It is important to note that environmental audit shall be considered as an instrument of help to the subsoil user in order to reveal the violations of environmental requirements and so called «hidden» problems of the work of the company that may negatively influence on environmental aspects of its activity. Let' s imagine the situation with the objects that had been built already or in the process of construction without positive conclusion of environmental expert examination. In such situations the institute of environmental audit comes as an instrument of protection of customer' s interests. The goal of environmental audit is a confirmation of observance of the requirements of nature use legislation during the projecting and construction of the object. Adopting the provisions of draft Ecological Code, the state wants to take the experience of the developed countries on creation the interest' s balance of subsoil users and state. However, having obliged the audit organization to provide the reports to the state bodies with further «opportunity» for the company to receive a suit from the state, these provisions violate the main principles of audit adopted in many developed countries: confidentiality of information and documents received during the audit process. Moreover, it is a well known principle of environmental auditors as the objectivity. And this means not just the independence of managers of audited object, customer, and also head of organization executing the audit, but also competency in issues of environmental protection and rational nature use, and also in specifics of audited object that is certified by the presence of corresponding documents. All these principles of execution of environmental audit should be aimed at only one thing — in case of presence of some mistakes in work of the company subsoil user — to help companies to discover and eliminate them.

Ecological requirements that are in force in the state shall be justified, understandable to each participant of ecological relationships and realizable. There is a need to establish the relationships of trust and mutual responsibility. This balance of interests should be clearly written in draft Ecological Code.

That is why the application of different measures of enforcement can be the results of ecological control, but not environmental audit.

For example, in Russia the environmental audit may reveal unreasonable exceed of ecological payments, illegal application of ecological payments to the enterprise, illegal application of sanctions, and audit report may become the ground for its cancellation. It is obvious there that it is better to execute the audit voluntarily having received the confidential information and use it in preventive purposes than to wait for the complex examination or obligatory audit that will inevitably lead to the usage of sanctions. Realizing that there is no necessity to copy the legislation of other countries on one hand, and on the other hand it is necessary to understand that there is a real opportunity to analyze and take only the best for our country. That is why it is necessary to review the provisions on environmental audit in order to use it as a means to improve the image of the company and its products having created by public and customers.

Therefore having analyzed certain provisions of the draft Ecological Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan we think that there is a need to overview the institutes of environmental audit and environmental expert examination that will certainly create the good atmosphere for development of ecologically clean business for the companies-nature users.