Scales of Justice briefing from Environmental Law Ireland and An Taisce скачать в хорошем качестве

Scales of Justice briefing from Environmental Law Ireland and An Taisce

Environmental Law Ireland and An Taisce's briefing on the latest attack on access to justice As many of you will be aware, access to justice and public participation in planning and environmental decision making are coming under increasingly serious threat in Ireland. The Government is seeking to dramatically erode the public right access to justice via the courts by imposing prohibitively expensive costs on eNGOs and members of civil society who seek to challenge unlawful planning, licencing, or policy decisions. The Government has just launched a consultation on new legislation that will introduce major changes to the legal cost rules for judicial reviews. They have timed the consultation to run over the Christmas/New Year break when many people will be too busy to engage with it. The new rules are clearly intended to have a profoundly negative effect on the level and quality of legal challenge the public can mount in our courts against the State and large developers. It is an attack on the scales of justice for ordinary people and builds on the already significant and problematic provisions in the new Planning and Development Act 2024. In the briefing session we look to explain the current cost rules; look at the key aspects and implications of the changes proposed; and indicate how we propose to help and enable the public to engage on this.