3 July, 2013
Legal aid cuts will deny communities environmental justice
The NSW government’s decision to end legal aid for major environmental cases [1] undermines a pillar of environmental justice in NSW and will tip the balance further in favour of developers and mining companies, according to Nature Conservation Council CEO Pepe Clarke.
“Environmental laws in NSW contain important provisions that allow citizens to take legal action to enforce the law or remedy bad or illegal decisions,” Mr Clarke said.
“Given the high cost of legal action and the deep pockets of the developers and mining companies, community groups and individuals need financial support to exercise their rights and ensure environmental justice is done. Removing legal aid for major environmental cases effectively denies communities and ordinary people access to the courts.”
Mr Clarke said the government claims that citizen-initiated legal action was hampering development in NSW was a myth.
“Citizen-initiated public-interest litigation constitutes a tiny percentage of all legal action in the state’s environmental courts,” Mr Clarke said. “Only 1 per cent of merit reviews in the Land and Environment Court are initiated by the community – 99 per cent of cases are initiated by developers. [2]
“The government should not be limiting the community’s ability to run public interest cases, to remedy breaches of environmental law or to have poor planning decisions reviewed by the courts, they should be enhancing them.
“Often citizens are forced to take action because government regulators have failed to do so, as was the case when the Blue Mountains Conservation Society took Wallarawang Power Station to court to stop it dumping heavy metals into the Coxs River, which feeds into Sydney’s water supply.
“The government’s decision to end environmental legal aid is the latest in a string of attacks by this government on people’s environmental rights. The O’Farrell government slashed 25 per cent from the Environmental Defender’s Office funding at the urging of the mining industry. It is now proposing through its planning law reform agenda to limit community input into decisions and to significantly restrict people's legal rights to appeal.
“The O’Farrell government’s approach is unbalanced and unfair. It favours powerful sectional interests ahead of the communities the government is supposed to serve, and will result in unlawful environmental destruction proceeding unchallenged.”
[1] http://www.smh.com.au/environment/environment-cases-wont-get-legal-aid-20130630-2p593.html#ixzz2XjflpWeB
[2] See the figures for Class 1 Appeals in "Table 6.1: Statewide S82A and legal appeals summary 2010-11" on page 80 of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure's report Local Development Performance Monitoring 2010-2011. http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Portals/0/AboutUs/docs/ldpm_feb2012_part1.pdf
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