Scottish Government must end environmental justice law breaches
The Scottish Government must act to ensure it is not breaching international environmental justice laws, says the Scottish Greens justice spokesperson, Maggie Chapman MSP.
The warning comes on the deadline for the UK to comply with the UN Aarhus Convention’s access to justice requirements. The convention enshrines the rights to defend the environment in a court of law. Article 9 of the Convention requires that access to the courts is fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive, a requirement which Scotland has not met.
The governing bodies of the Convention had given Scotland until today to implement their recommendations to remove barriers to justice, but the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, and others, believe that the Scottish Government has fallen short.
Speaking ahead of a protest set to take place outside the Court of Session today, Ms Chapman said: “Communities everywhere should have a clean and healthy environment to live in, to explore, to play in and to learn about. But our environment is in crisis. Our nature is being degraded and polluted every day, we face a climate emergency, and species are going extinct at an alarming rate.
“We all need to be able to hold polluters and public bodies to account for the environmental damage they are doing so that we can stand up for nature, and defend our right to a healthy environment.
“But that can’t happen if people are unable to access a prohibitively complex and costly justice system.
"We badly need to reform legal aid and the way our court system handles environmental crime to ensure that communities have an easy and affordable route to appeal injustice. The Scottish Government has known about this deadline for a long time, and yet we have not seen the action we need to create a system that works for people and planet.
“I urge the Scottish Government to do everything it can to ensure it meets its obligations under this Convention, but also follows best practice, supporting communities to realise their right to a healthy environment.”