engleski

The Effectiveness of Civil Protection of the Environment

The human right to a healthy environment has been frequently violated and it is necessary to protect it adequately. In theory it could be established that the civil protection of the environment in Croatia is well functioning and provides effective legal protection. However, in practice, the realization of that protection showed to the plaintiffs difficult to realize because the high procedural costs made them difficult to access to the court. Thus allegations have occurred that the current system does not provide effective protection in regard of damages suffered by the plaintiffs since litigation costs such as those for the expertise that they need to pay in advance are huge. Significant interpretation gave the EU Court of Justice in the Edwards case in which held that potential applicants should not be prevented from pursuing judicial proceedings by reason of the financial burden that might arise. National laws and courts need to safeguard rights which individuals derive from EU law, and must not make it in practice excessively difficult or impossible to exercise this rights. Therefore, the basic reason why individual citizens, natural persons, rarely decide for the filing of this lawsuits is based on the fact that these procedures are costly and long lasting and on the other hand, always with uncertain outcome. Moreover, such procedures are generally conducted against more powerful oppponents that have their own legal services and resources to finance the procedure more easily. The aim of this paper is to point out the problems faced by "ordinary citizens" and NGOs when they are seeking for the protection of their environment and to propose possible solutions.

access to court ; civil protection of the environment ; procedural costs

nije evidentirano