Ms Rachel Minch:

It is a good question. We are going back over some pretty opaque Court of Justice decisions as well. As a general comment, most of our applicants have sufficient interest, in our experience. There are rare cases where a court finds an applicant does not have sufficient interest. Our general understanding, from EU law on the Aarhus Convention, is that wide access to justice is to be facilitated. There is much to be said for having a fairly general concept of sufficient interest and allowing the court to assess, using its discretion and various factors, whether or not that test has been met. An area where there are potential difficulties is this possible prior participation aspect and that if you are not directly or materially affected then you only have standing if your grounds relate to the matter you have raised before the decision-maker. Questions also arise when you look to the requirements for environmental NGOs, for example. There are differing views within the committee on this, so we are trying to work towards some consensus or at least to flag the issues. I might dig it out the relevant passage. I have been going from my house to work with this big folder for the last while. The draft Bill requires "[the] constitution [of the company] includes objects that relate to the promotion of environmental protection of relevance to the appeal, ... [and] that [it] has pursued those objects for a period of not less than one year". Thus, it is not just that you will have a general interest in environmental protection, but rather that it must relate to the particular decision. In that context, I wonder whether we need to look at that given how many NGOs here have such a broad mandate and would be pursuing issues that relate to decisions it might be legitimate for an environmental NGO to challenge. As a matter of practice, we felt that could be challenging as well.