1. This appeal concerns a project to construct and operate the Integrated Waste Management Facilities Phase I, commonly known as the municipal waste incinerator (“the facilities”), at an artificial island near Shek Kwu Chau. It is common ground that an environmental permit (“EP”) under s 10 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (“EIAO”) Cap 499 was required for the facilities. For that purpose, applications were made under s 5 for a study brief, under s 8 for an Environmental Impact Assessment (“EIA”) report and finally for an EP under s 10 (“the applications”). 2. The Environmental Assessment Division (“EAD”) and the Infrastructure Planning Group (“IPG”) (the former name) belong to 2 separate divisions within the Environmental Protection Department (“EPD”). The applications were made in the name of the Director of Environmental Protection (“the Director”) because the IPG was the proponent of the facilities. The applications were dealt with in the usual way by the EAD, the Director having delegated to the officers in the EAD the requisite powers under the relevant provisions. The applications resulted in decisions made in the name of the Director to approve the EIA report as well as the issue of the EP (“the decisions”). 3. The Appellant challenged the decisions by way of a judicial review application. The Court of First Instance rejected the grounds advanced by the Appellant and dismissed the application for judicial review. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by a majority. Leave was granted to the Appellant to appeal to this Court on the ground that a question of “great general or public importance” is involved in the appeal. Before this Court, the Appellant argued that on its proper construction, the EIAO excluded the Director from ever being the proponent of a designated project which is required to go through the prescribed EIA process under the EIAO. 4. The Court unanimously dismissed the appeal and held that it was clearly envisaged by the legislature that the Director, as waste disposal authority under the Waste Disposal Ordinance (“WDO”) Cap. 354 and proponent of waste disposal facilities, might apply for an EP under the EIAO. In arriving at this conclusion, the Court highlighted the following aspects which provide the context in which the EIAO should be construed: (1) Both before and after the enactment of EIAO, the Director was the waste disposal authority under the WDO. The facilities which are waste disposal facilities were the responsibilities of the Director under WDO. (2) The approval process is highly transparent and that during the approval process other stakeholders have full opportunity to comment and state their views. There is also the possibility of recourse to the courts by way of judicial review. (3) The actual separation of the functions of EAD and the IPG divisions is not deficient in any way and it begs the question to say that the legislature had implicitly rendered illegitimate a scheme which had actually provided functional separation. (4) Waste removal facilities were mentioned expressly in Schedule 2 and made designated projects. The legislature must have been aware of the Director’s duties under the WDO. (5) The EPD included a division dealing specifically with waste management which was involved with waste management policy, infrastructure, facilities and reductions, for which the legislature had voted the necessary funds. 5. Chief Justice Ma observed that a statute must be construed with regard to its context and purpose. His Lordship held that in the context of the EIAO and the WDO the Director can clearly be the proponent of a waste management facility. His Lordship opined that the Director had a statutory responsibility in such matter as the Director was both the “collection authority” and the “waste disposal authority” under the WDO. 6. Ribeiro PJ observed that where the designated project involves waste management, the department one would naturally expect to formulate and implement relevant government policy is the EPD. His Lordship held that it is only if, in playing such role, an inevitable conflict of interest, or the kind of absurdity referred to by the Appellant, must arise or does in fact arise, that the Court should either construe the EIAO as excluding the EPD generally or intervene in relation to a particular project where the objections do in fact arise. 7. Lord Collins of Mapesbury NPJ observed that the Appellant’s contention would make a nonsense of the EIAO as a whole, particularly s 9, which provides that “a person” shall not construct or operate a designated project without an EP. His Lordship held that it is simply impossible to interpret the EIAO as a whole by giving different meanings to the word “person” in what is essentially a single context.