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Ireland
A Constitutional Right to a Healthy Environment By Georgia Dillon SF Law In 2019, a group of Irish Citizens brought the Irish Government to the High Court. They claimed that government action on climate change was not sufficient and demanded that this be corrected. A year long legal battle ensued, with the Supreme Court ruling in favour of Friends of the Irish Environment, stating that Ireland’s National Mitigation Plan was not adequate in light of its legal obligations. However, this raises the question: did this case limit the extent of constitutional protection accorded to Irish citizens’ environmental rights? The Case in The High Court In March 2019, Friends of the Irish Environment, a collective of environmental activists, presented their case in the High Court. They argued that the Irish Government had failed in its legal obligation under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 to “specify the manner in which it is proposed to achieve the national transition objective,” which involves a shift to a “low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy.” Friends of the Irish Environment submitted that the 2017 National Mitigation Plan did not satisfy this requirement under the 2015 Act. They also contended that the plan violated constitutional and human rights, such as the right to life and the right to bodily integrity. They believed that the Plan had no hope of ensuring that Ireland would achieve the goal of becoming ‘a low-carbon and climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by 2050.’ In the High Court, Mr. Justice MacGrath stated that “it is self-evident that climate change is a problem of and for the global community. No one country, particularly that of the size of this State, can tackle the problem on its own. That, however, does not lessen the requirement to do what is necessary to achieve scientifically advised targets.” However, the High Court ruled in favour of the government, finding that “the court should avoid interfering with the exercise of discretion by the legislature or executive when its aim is the pursuit of policy.” Mr. Justice MacGrath believed that the Plan was an initial step in making the country a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable economy by 2050. The Court denied Friends of the Irish Environment’s claim that the government was not fulfilling its legal obligation and did not oblige the State to rethink Ireland’s climate change policy. The Appeal Friends of the Irish Environment were granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court as their case raised a matter of general public and legal importance. They sought an order for judicial review, asking that the courts quash the decision of the High Court to approve the National Mitigation Plan 2017 and an order for the Government to revise the plan in accordance with the standards set out in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. The group also argued that the National Mitigation plan was unconstitutional, that it was in breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, The Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and Section 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The group’s aim was for the Court to recognise an unenumerated right to a healthy environment, to join Portugal and Spain in recognising a constitutional right to a healthy environment.
