Wednesday 7 December 2005
AFP

The Supreme court of appeal rejected Wednesday an appeal in cassation of Cogema, making thus final its judgment for illegal storage of nuclear waste coming from Australia in La Hague (Handle), one learned Wednesday from concordant sources.

April 12, 2005, the Court of Appeal of Caen had confirmed the judgment of Cogema in this business where Greenpeace association estimated that the reprocessing plant of nuclear waste stored, in violation of the law on the management of waste, of the Australian nuclear waste which had not obtained the authorizations necessary to their reprocessing.

The Court of Appeal of Caen had recognized that these stored substances were many radioactive nuclear waste, which disputed Cogema, and that they had been stored for 4 years "under unjustified conditions in comparison with the applicable legislation".

The 3rd civil room of the Supreme court of appeal confirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal, one learned at Cogema and from Greenpeace.

According to the stop whose AFP obtained copy, the Court of Appeal "A exactly deduced that this fuel, residue of a process of transformation or use (...) could not be regarded as a product obtained at an intermediate stage of a process of transformation and that the only qualification which was applicable for him was that of waste".

In addition, in its stop, the Court notes that Cogema did not respect the prohibition of storage of waste which was imposed to him.

"Court of Appeal which (...) retained that the reprocessing was an operation which was exerted on the matter itself and that storage as such (...) could not be regarded as a phase of reprocessing, in A exactly deduced (...) that Cogema (...) did not exonerate prohibition of principle posed", estimated the stop.

"This decision confirms that Cogema did not respect the law and throws the opprobrium on the way in which Cogema manages waste", affirmed with the AFP Frederic Marillier of the Greenpeace association for which this stop "opens enough vast fields for other recourse".

On its side, Cogema estimated that this decision did not give "not of it causes the Australian reprocessing the fuel worn which began on June 9, 2005, the operational authorization of treatment having been granted by decree on March 29, 2005".

"In accordance with the law, waste resulting from the treatment will be returned to Australia. Uranium will be recycled ", adds Cogema.