AARHUS CONVENTION

 

Archives: Task Force on Access to Justice

2002 - 2005
2000 - 2002

2002-2005

Background

The first meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention (Lucca, Italy 21-23 October 2002) decided to establish a task force on access to justice to support the implementation of the third pillar of the Convention by virtue of decision I/5 (E F R). The Meeting agreed that the Task Force should build upon and continue the work of the Task Force establised under the Meeting of Signatories and that it should in particular undertake the following tasks:

• continue the examination of good practices ,
• identify possible further activities to support the implementation of article 9, paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 , which could form basis of recommendations to the Meeting of the Parties;
• assess the impact of the costs of and delay in access to justice on its effectiveness and the needs of various stakeholders, and develop information and guidance material in order to address these needs; and finally,
• share experience with access to justice in relation to relevant articles of the Convention, other than 4 and 6.

The Meeting of the Parties welcomed the offer of Belgium to take the lead of the task force.

Third meeting
The third meeting of the Task Force will took place on 4-6 October 2004 in Geneva.

Agenda and other documents for the meeting are listed below. The report of the meeting will be availible soon.

Title	English	French	Russian
Provisional agenda for the third meeting	pdf
Report of the third meeting	pdf	pdf	pdf
List of Participants
INFORMAL DOCUMENTS
Questionnaire on the criteria for standing	word		word
Compilation of responses to questionnaire on the criteria for standing	word
Council of Europe Resolutions and Recommendations	word

Second meeting
The second meeting of the Task Force was held in Geneva on 20-21 November 2003. The Task Force discussed, among other things, the implementation of article 9 of the Convention and addressed issues such as non-legal barriers to access to justice and access to justice in relation to other relevant provisions of the Convention. Possible activities concerning training of members of the judiciary and other legal professionals, especially needed for in countries in transition, was also focused upon as well as the latest developments concerning EU legislation and the Aarhus Convention. The report as well as some informal documents will be available soon. Please find the documents and the list of participants below.

Title	English	French	Russian
Provisional agenda for the Second Meeting	pdf
Report of the second meeting	pdf	pdf	pdf
List of Participants	word
INFORMAL DOCUMENTS
Adequacy and effectiveness of remedies	word
Compilation of responses to questionnaire on non-legal barriers (up-dated)	word

First meeting
The lead country of the task force, Belgium, hosted the first meeting of the Task Force, which took place in Brussels on 10-11 March 2003. The Meeting discussed various issues related to the implementation of the access to justice pillar of the Convention and identified some activities for its future work. Please see the documents below.

Title	English	French	Russian
Programme of work for the first meeting	pdf
Provisional agenda for the first meeting	pdf
Discussion paper for the first meeting of the Task Force - prepared by the lead country	pdf	not available	word
Report of the first meeting (MP.PP/WG.1/2003/3)	pdf	pdf	pdf
List of participants	word

Relevant resources and links

Handbook on Access to Justice English

Conclusions of the First Round Table of European Regional Ombudsmen (Barcelona, 2-3 July 2004) can be found here http://www.coe.int

2000-2002

Background
At the second meeting of Signatories to the Aarhus Convention, it was decided to establish a task force on access to justice to support the implementation of the third pillar of the Convention. The Meeting welcomed the offer of Estonia to take the lead of the task force. The Meeting agreed that the task force should focus on means of practical implementation, measures to remove financial obstacles to those seeking access to justice and consideration of assistance mechanisms, rather than engage in efforts to extend or refine the legal framework provided by the Convention. It should gather information on good practices and provide a forum for exchange of experience and make an effort to provide models, concrete solutions, and problem-solving approaches in the implementation of article 9. It was agreed that representatives of ministries of justice should be invited to participate.

Handbook
Within the framework of the task force, a handbook on good practices of access to  justice under the Aarhus Convention based on a number of case studies is being prepared. The objective of the handbook is to identify and report on a range of examples of access to justice matters that fall within the scope of the Convention with a view to supporting the practical implementation. The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) is project coordinator and UK is funding the project. The second draft of the Handbook was presented to the first meeting of the Parties (October 2002).

Workshop
The lead country of the task force, Estonia, hosted a workshop on access to justice in Tallinn, Estonia, on 17-19 September 2001. The aim of the workshop was to discuss issues of access to justice and to provide input to the draft handbook. The report of the workshop was presented to the Working Group for the preparation of the first meeting of the Parties at its first meeting in November 2001.

Relevant documents	English	French	Russian
Report of the workshop	pdf	pdf	pdf
Final list of participants	pdf
Provisional agenda for the workshop	pdf
Questions to be considered for discussion at the workshop	pdf
First draft Handbook on Access to Justice (September 2001)	word		word
Letter from the lead country, 10 April 2001	pdf
Invitation to the Workshop, 4 July 2001	pdf
Report of the second meeting of the Signatories	pdf	pdf	pdf