Description
The project addresses the problem of poor and inadequate legal protection of the environment by NGOs, arising from the lack of lawyers qualified for environmental protection and spatial planning. The project will establish a network of qualified legal professionals connected with other natural science experts in order to achieve effective legal advocacy in these fields by NGOs. The objective of the project is effective legal protection in the mentioned fields, therefore stronger environmental NGOs and more effective public participation in decision making processes in these areas. The project is expected to establish the environmental defenders network which will offer legal aid and advocacy activities in the area of environmental protection and spatial planning. Also there will be created and implemented an educational system module for unemployed young lawyers for working in the net. By collecting cases of good practice there will be prepared recommendations for effective public participation. The project will benefit NGOs and civil initiatives in the field of environmental protection and spatial planning and unemployed young lawyers.
Summary of project results
Complex legislation and implementation deficit are the main problems that hinder legal protection of the environment in Slovenia. In particular, lack of environmental jurisprudence is observed due to lack of legal knowledge and lack of environmental lawyers that would serve to NGOs. To improve implementation it is important that NGOs use all possible legal remedies and participate in decision making processes. Main project goals were to empower environmental NGOs (using legal knowledge and legal remedies), increase public and NGOs participation in environmental decision making processes, and improve efficiency of legal protection of the environment. To reach these goals, beneficiary theoretically and practically educated 28 lawyers for environmental protection and connected them in the network. Beside that they established the rules about financing and case working (for important cases that serves to common benefit preserving health and nature), set up the website providing simple instructions how to get legal help and a lot of useful legal materials in e-library. Additionally two analyses were conducted. In the first one beneficiary collected best practices of public (and NGO) participation in environmental protection and spatial planning, and the other addressed the problem of cost burden in environmental court cases and made the comparative study in some EU countries. In parallel to the project implementation beneficiary also reached some achievements in the court and in administrative procedures. Consequently their propositions, warnings and requests to the Ministry of environment and spatial planning are now taken into consideration much more seriously. The beneficiary’s experts more often receive invitations to the meetings or discussions about foreseen legislation solutions. All the results and outputs were widely promoted in the public and sent to all environmental decision makers.
Summary of bilateral results