The EEB’s Provisional Analysis of the Performance of the EU on Access to Justice Implementation Contents

The case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has also confirmed the requirement of access to justice in environmental matters under the Aarhus Convention, but CJEU judgements do not lead to uniform or harmonised implementation of this right across the Member States. [...] The non- binding statement issued by the European Commission upon adoption of the law and reiterating the need for Member States to ensure access to justice in case of breach of the Governance Regulation’s obligations does not compensate for this lack of access to justice provision. [...] After the failure of the legislators to include access to justice provisions in the Effort Sharing Regulation and on the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry Regulation in trilogue negotiations, the Commission made a non-binding declaration, by which it committed to assess access to justice in Member States in its report pursuant to Article 45 of the Governance Regulation. [...] Analysing the success of access to justice provisions throughout the 2019 – 2024 legislature, it becomes, however, abundantly clear that where the right to go to court is already proposed in the Commission’s proposal, the chances of it finding it into the final law are much higher than when the Parliament tries to introduce a reference to the third Aarhus Convention pillar later on in the legislat. [...] Annex II - Detailed assessment of the quality of the Access to justice provisions Access to Environmental Information Directive Article 6 Comments: The Access to Environmental Information Directive is one of two directives implementing the Aarhus Convention for the European Union (the other one being the Public Participation Directive).