Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:

I completely support Dr. Logue's concerns in respect of that mapping. However, there is an additional level of granularity. For example, in the context of ENGOs and the associations of the public. New requirements are being specified in respect of entities being incorporated in order to work their way through some of the different avenues that they might be able to wriggle through in order to get to court. Being incorporated brings significant burdens to small organisations in terms of having audited accounts, applying for exemptions and all sorts of different practical things. For an organisation - for example, even some of the national ENGOs that would be incorporated - there are requirements about having to bring resolutions before their memberships.

Under most of the constitutions that requires convening an extraordinary general meeting. That means 21 days' notice with a day on either side. There are costs and burdens associated with that and it is all in the context of a 21-day window. There are also some ambiguous clauses in there with respect to how your constitution actually maps to the grounds on which you might take a challenge. It remains to be seen how viciously that will be litigated. All of these things are basically where there is a restriction of the lawfulness in the context of those two broad principles of effective access to justice and the rights under the charter and under Article 19 of the Treaty of the European Union. Thus, there are EU law rights we need to take into account in respect of access to the courts that are profoundly powerful and need to be read together with the Aarhus Convention. There is a double requirement there creating that imperative. When we look at how these things add up do they actually create barriers that mean it is excessively difficult for people to be able to get to court. That would be litigated and would cause delay.