UN committee finds Ireland is not complying with international legal obligations, following @RightToKnowIE complaint.

"by failing to put inplace measures to ensure that the OCEI and the courts decide appeals regarding [AIE requests] in a timely manner, [Ireland] fails to comply with the requirement in article 9 (4) of the Convention to ensure timely procedures for the review of [..] requests;.."

One thing I think is significant from the ACCC: *the courts* are failing to decide appeals in a timely manner, which is a breach of the Aarhus Convention. Ireland will have to come up with a way to address this.

Full decision here http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/compliance/C2016-141_Ireland/Draft_Findings/C141_Ireland_findings_advance_version.pdf

The Greens have proposed the establishment of environmental courts akin to the Commercial Court. Fast tracked cases of some sort seem to be required here. There is a bit of a climate emergency also.

And I'd defer to law Twitter here, but to me this sounds like appeal on a point of law and/or remittal of decisions etc from the courts back to the OCEI are now.. hmmm?

Irish legal Twitter: do dive in to the above mentioned decision! @cearta @FredPLogue @AndrewLRJackson @Env_Pillar @envjusticeucc et al

Because my reading is that the courts should be able to not just assess an appeal on a point of law, but something broader, such as issue directions or other remedies This would require legislative changes I guess?

And also: @RightToKnowIE have worked on this with our lawyers @FPLogueLaw for a few years now, including travelling to Geneva for the hearing. This stuff is serious, and we take it seriously. The rights of journalists, eNGOs and citizens *must* be vindicated.

And Ireland being in breach of international law is also, er, serious. It's a Convention we are party to.

If you have a bit of time I'd say read the whole Convention, it's a genuinely fascinating piece of international law.

https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/documents/cep43e.pdf

This is the bit Ireland has been found to be falling into lack of compliance with, by the ACCC.

And NONE of this would be possible without the support of the public - many of whom are right here on the Twitter machine. Your donations to R2K mean we can take actions like this, and sustain them over several years. Without public support we are nowhere.

So thank you to everyone who has donated money to @RightToKnowIE we try to be as effective as we can.

We are actually in the High Court at the moment in *another* case involving vindicating rights in the area of interpreting the AIE Directive/Regulations. And again tomorrow.

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