Many of you have generously donated towards the legal costs required to apply to the High Court for a Judicial Review of the decision to permit Luton Airport Expansion. That investment has borne fruit, and we’ve had some really good news from the Court.
Despite the best efforts of Luton Rising and the Government’s lawyers to rubbish our claims that there are arguable grounds for a Review, the Judge handling the case (Mrs Justice Lieven) has said, “In my view, although some grounds are stronger than others, the efficient course is to grant permission on all grounds. All meet the threshold of arguability.”
In addition, the Judge has agreed a Stay of Decision on one of our grounds. This will not be considered until a separate legal case in the Appeal Court decides whether or not the government’s Jet Zero Strategy (a set of aspirations which are used to dismiss concerns over carbon impacts of aviation growth) is lawful. All this serves to slow down the Luton Rising aspirations.
Our application, when it is heard, has been listed for 2 days in the High Court, which means it will be given a substantive hearing and not just decided on the paperwork.
The opposition now has up to 7 weeks to file more detailed arguments if they wish, and we then get 3 weeks to respond, after which the hearing date is set for the first 5 grounds. So, all in all, this couldn’t have gone any better thus far. Fundraising is still under way, and we’re not far off the original estimates now – provided the government honours the Aarhus Commitment which limits cost claims in such challenges.
The Aarhus Commitment is a mechanism to enable the public to access information, and participate in decision making, and access to justice in environmental matters.
This agreement is the leading International Agreement on environmental democracy, and it protects every person’s right to, live in a healthy environment and guarantees three key rights on environmental issues.
These are:
- Access to Information
- Public Participation
- Access to Justice
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/law-and-governance/aarhus_en
Another key feature of this commitment is in regards of costs for cases brought to court. If an applicant loses, costs against them are capped at £5,000 for an individual claimant, and at £10,000 for all cases. The reciprocal to this is that an applicant can only claim £35,000 from the other party.
As LADACAN state, the honouring of the commitment is now down to a Government Decision, we can only hope that they have the grace to magnanimous in their decision?
The Crowd Justice Fundraiser link to donate, to raise the funds for the legal costs, is shown below: