The trust
One sentence in Title I creates the obligation the Commissioner exists to carry.
Article 5(5): the natural heritage is held in trust for succeeding generations. Depletion transferred to the future is accounted as a present cost.
Meaning of the trust
A trust is held for beneficiaries who are not present to enforce it. The beneficiaries here are persons not yet born, and Article 256(1) constitutes the Commissioner as their representative in the deliberations of the Republic.
The second sentence of Article 5(5) fixes the method of accounting. Depletion transferred to the future is entered as a cost of the present period, so a draft drawing down a cumulative budget more quickly records a higher present cost. The figure appears in the plan itself and not in a commentary upon it.
What succeeding generations are owed
Five transfers are named for the Commissioner to examine. Depletion removes a stock. Contamination leaves a substance behind. Disrepair defers work that will fall due later. Obligation binds a future body to a commitment made now. Risk shifts a probability forward while the consequence remains.
The Sornorum stores involve all five, and Article 258(3) brings them back to the Commissioner at intervals of no more than five years.
Limits of competence
The preferences of persons not yet born are unknown and are in no case asserted by the Commissioner. Findings state quantities: hectares of soil, tonnes of heavy metal, labour hours of maintenance, and the intervals over which each obligation runs.
The Constitution fixes the limit of the office. It may require an act to be reconsidered in public sitting, and the reconsideration in no way binds the outcome. The decision remains with the organ that adopted the act.
Precaution
Article 5(4): scientific uncertainty about the extent of an ecological harm justifies protective measures and furnishes no ground for deferring them.
Article 27(4): scientific uncertainty concerning the extent of a harm justifies no refusal of relief.
Uncertainty about how bad something will be is the ordinary condition of every question the Commissioner examines. Both provisions put the burden where it belongs: a body proposing to transfer a risk explains why the transfer is acceptable, and the absence of a settled figure is no argument for waiting.
Holder of the office
Five members drawn by lot from the pool of Article 236, confirmed by the Judicial Council, serving one term of seven years and never a second. Article 238(3) makes the office incompatible with membership of another oversight office, with the Judicial Council, and with any function in a foreign economic entity.
The terms are staggered so that no more than two members of the college are replaced in any year.