The 15th meeting of the Working Group on Access to Justice, the third pillar of the Aarhus Convention, was held on April 4-5 in Geneva.
The main focus of the meeting was the exchange of experience on ensuring access to justice in cases related to climate change and biodiversity conservation.
The working group discussed trends, best practices, barriers, challenges and innovative solutions in these areas. Discussions on access to justice in energy-related cases, the main topic of the previous session, also continued.
The delegates discussed the issues related to the elimination of the costs of justice in environmental protection matters, as well as the reasonable time frames for the review of decisions.
Tools to promote effective access to justice, such as access to independent environmental expertise, access to review procedures, means of collecting relevant data and statistics and disseminating information on access to relevant case law (e-justice, modern digital technologies, etc.) were considered.
Marie Chakryan, the national coordinator of the Aarhus Convention, presented what work is being done in our country within the framework of justice sector reforms, emphasizing how they are related or how they can create a stable basis for making the protection of the public's ecological rights easier. He presented how the dialogue between the multi-stakeholder group is ensured in order to eliminate the existing obstacles.
Ruzanna Azroyan, the judge of the RA Administrative Court, and Ruzanna Ghazaryan, the president of the "Dalma-Sona" foundation from the public wing, also participated in the session of the working group.
All materials related to the meeting are available on the UNECE website: https://bit.ly/3ZW5q17