Dr. ?ine Ryall:

It is clear to everyone that there is already a substantial body of national, EU and international law. The difficulty relates to what I said earlier about the fundamentals, namely, the prioritisation of implementation. This involves resourcing. When resourcing does not happen and the public authorities are not able to do the work assigned to them by law, we run into difficulty.

Clearly, there is an issue with access to justice more generally. People find it difficult to find remedies to ensure that the law is enforced, be that for reasons of cost or not being aware of their rights.

I fully agree regarding the education and awareness aspect of this, which is important, but it ultimately comes down to prioritisation and resourcing. If the latter factors are in place, everything else should follow. I am being careful in respect of the Aarhus Convention side of things. As was stated, I am here in a personal capacity rather than in my role as chair of the compliance committee. Again, however, it is political will that drives these things. It is important not to lose sight of the basics.

As regards the potential constitutional side of things, one tends to see that in other jurisdictions an explicit constitutional right obviously brings greater visibility to these issues and tends to support more robust environmental laws and policies. It very much puts the environment on the table politically in a way that it previously would not have been. That has been the experience elsewhere. It is impossible to predict to what a particular constitutional right might lead, but that is the nature of these constitutional rights. Nothing is perfect and there is no way of being absolutely certain. That element of predictability should be taken into account. I am repeating myself, but it ultimately comes down to political will, resources for public authorities and the awareness of where to go to enforce the rights.