The year 2018 is a special one in the life of the Aarhus family. We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Convention, or as we say, its 20th Birthday. Countries parties to the Convention also celebrate this important date, e.g. in Hungary, the Deputy Ombudsman for Future Generations initiated a cooperation with J&E’s Hungarian member organization EMLA to hold a joint session on the achievements of the Aarhus Convention in Hungary.

This date also served as a good occasion to hold the Hungarian workshop of the V4 Aarhus Center project (back-to-back with the first Hungarian training in the EARL project (www.clientearth.org/access-justice-greener-europe/)).

The meeting was held on 21 November and approximately 50 persons attended it, mainly coming from the regional environmental competent authorities all across the country, but the judiciary, the academia and the civil sector were also represented.

Read more about the event here:

www.emla.hu/hu/content/%C3%BCnnepi-rendezv%C3%A9ny-az-ombudsman-hivatal%C3%A1ban-az-aarhusi-egyezm%C3%A9ny-elfogad%C3%A1s%C3%A1nak-20

The first volume of the Newsletter of the project is available online in English.

The barriers and challenges related to access to justice in environmental matters were the subjects of a seminar organized by ClientEarth in the last week of January in the Office of the Ombudsman in Warsaw. It was the first training undertaken within the project “Access to justice for a greener Europe” in Poland.

“The issue of providing citizens with access to courts has been the most underrated part of the Aarhus Convention for years,” said Dr Jerzy Jendrośka, a member of the Aarhus Convention Committee, during the first part of the meeting devoted to international standards in the field of access to justice in environmental matters. He stated that it is one of the main challenges which all Member States of the European Union are facing nowadays.

The voice of Dr Hanna Machińska, Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights, was slightly more optimistic. In her view, the Aarhus Convention became part of European Union law thanks to the CJEU rulings regarding the application of the Convention’s provisions. She also emphasized that the Aarhus Convention, through the rulings of the CJEU, affects domestic law.

The speakers in the second part focused mainly on identifying barriers to access to justice in environmental matters.

Legal advisor Agnieszka Warso-Buchanan presented barriers to access to courts on the basis of limited possibilities to challenge legal acts regulating air quality issues in the Visegrad Group countries as well as in Bulgaria and Romania.

The meeting initiated a series of eight training sessions on access to courts in matters related to environmental protection.

Read more about the event here:

https://www.clientearth.org/first-polish-seminar-on-access-to-justice-organised-at-the-ombudsmans-office/

https://www.pl.clientearth.org/pierwsze-warsztaty-na-temat-dostepu-do-sadow-za-nami/

The public toolkit on the conditions of legal standing in environmental matters is available in English on the website of Justice & Environment. The respective national language toolkits are available on the websites of the project partners:

Czech

Hungarian

Polish

Slovakian

On February 28, 2019, VIA IURIS carried out the first of a series of training sessions that are planned for the judges of administrative colleges of Regional Courts in Slovakia in 2019. This first training took place at the Regional Court of Žilina. Apart from lawyers from VIA IURIS (Imrich Vozár), we were glad to receive as a speaker the Czech judge Mgr. Bc. Aleš Roztočil LL.M. from the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic. The seminar focused predominantly on the new Administrative Court Procedural Code which enshrines very broad rights of the public to access the justice system in environmental matters and implements nearly the whole 3rd pillar of the Aarhus Convention. The seminar proved that it is very necessary and even appreciated by judges to have educational activities in this topic and discuss the numerous questions the new procedure code brings up.

Take a look at the photos of the seminar here

Association Justice & Environment together with NGO Client Earth are carrying out an EU LIFE programme financed project called “Education and Awareness Raising of Legal Professionals on Access to Justice”. The project is carried out in eight countries – Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Spain.

Access to justice in environmental matters is an EU-wide and, indeed, a global issue. This project will act as a pilot project, with the intention to replicate the project in other EU areas. To assist with the replicability and transferability, pilot Member States differ in context, size, duration of EU membership, and represent both unitary as well as federal legal systems. These varying contexts will ensure that by the end of the project, a strong basis has been created for replicating similar activities in other EU countries and regions in a way that best matches the specific contexts of these countries.

Objective of the project:

The project aims to improve the implementation and enforcement of EU environmental law by providing the public with effective access to justice, such as judicial review, administrative review and complaints to other appeal bodies. Access to justice is a fundamental means through which citizens and NGOs can support the implementation and enforcement of laws and policies to protect the environment. In order to reach this long-term goal, the project aims to:

• Increase awareness of existing rules and case-law on access to justice in environmental matters for specific target audiences – the judiciary, bodies responsible for the administration of justice, public interest lawyers and public administrations;

• Increase understanding of the importance of ensuring proper access to justice for the implementation of EU environmental laws and policies;

• Increase understanding of specific challenges and obstacles to proper access to justice in environmental matters both at national and EU level; and

• Increase knowledge and capacity for overcoming legal (both substantial and procedural) challenges and obstacles to effective access to justice in the environmental field. 

Duration:

Second half of 2017 – June 2020

Financing:

The project is financed by EU LIFE programme by 678 098 euros and co-financed by Association Justice & Environment z.s. 88 561 euros and Client Earth 364 800 euros.

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