State's judicial review reform faces its own challenge on cap to environmental legal costs

TWO ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS have jointly launched a court challenge to the State’s new legislation to restrict judicial review.

An Taisce and Friends of the Irish Environment have made an application to the High Court regarding one aspect of the Planning and Development Regulations 2026, which caps the legal costs that can be recovered by successful litigants in environmental legal cases.

Judicial reviews are cases taken by citizens or groups to the High Court. In recent years, such cases have been used to challenge decisions made by An Bord Pleanála on large-scale property developments around the country.

The government has made numerous steps to restrict the number of judicial reviews taken.

Under reforms in the Civil Reform Bill, there will be stricter time limits and restrictions around who can take a judicial review.

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In a joint statement, the two environmental groups said that if a public body makes a serious environmental mistake, “ordinary individuals will have to pay thousands to go to court to correct it”.

They said members of the public will be penalised for acting to protect the environmental and for helping the public body properly execute its functions, while the state and developers “will remain free to spend unlimited amounts on their lawyers to defend their projects, regardless of the environmental impacts”. 

“There is little doubt that the State’s motivation is to remove access to the courts by erecting insurmountable financial barriers to ordinary people and their associations who wish to take cases to uphold the law, which the Government itself has enacted.”

The government has argued that judicial review slows down the implementation of infrastructure – the challenge launched against the Metrolink by Ranelagh residents and delays to the Greater Dublin Drainage Project cited as key examples.

Legal groups have countered that the legislation could impact people taking challenges in different areas outside of planning and infrastructure, while environmental groups have expressed concern that the Bill will weaken climate governance.

The Critical Infrastructure Bill, which came into effect in June, allows the State to bypass a climate commitment for certain projects. This clause was disapplied as the section was frequently used as the basis for environmental judicial reviews.

The case is due for initial hearing on 5 October.

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