Environmental Appeal Act

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basic data
Title: Law on supplementary provisions
on legal remedies in environmental matters
according to EC Directive 2003/35 / EC
Short title: Environmental Appeal Act
Abbreviation: UmwRG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany             
Legal matter: Administrative law , environmental law
References : 2129-46
Original version from: 7 December 2006
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2816 )
Entry into force on: December 15, 2006
New announcement from: 23 August 2017
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 3290, 3291 )
Last change by: Art. 4 G of December 17, 2018
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2549, 2566 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		December 21, 2018
(Art. 15 G of December 17, 2018)
GESTA : E011
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The law on supplementary provisions on legal remedies in environmental matters according to EC Directive 2003/35 / EC (Environmental Legal Remedies Act - UmwRG) is a German federal law with which, for the first time in German law, the extended legal action against certain environmental law approval decisions for industrial plants and infrastructure measures are introduced.

background

The law serves to adapt federal law to mandatory European legal requirements. The EC Directive 2003/35 / EC had to be implemented in German law by June 25, 2005. The federal government at that time (the red-green cabinet Schröder II ) was behind with the implementation. A draft law was introduced to parliament in August 2006 after infringement proceedings had been opened and marked as particularly urgent.

For its part, Directive 2003/35 / EC served to implement the UN / ECE convention on access to information, public participation in decisions and access to justice in environmental matters (so-called Aarhus Convention ).

The Environmental Remedies Act came into force on December 15, 2006. Another federal law implementing the Aarhus Convention, which also came into force on the same day, is the Public Participation Act . The European Commission withdrew the infringement proceedings pending before the European Court of Justice in January 2007.

An intense legal dispute has arisen in Germany over the implementation of the Public Information Directive and the Aarhus Convention. The focus was and is the question of the extent to which environmental and nature conservation associations should be given the opportunity to take legal action.

Representative action

The Act was first larger scale collective action in the German administrative procedural law introduced. In principle, the German Administrative Court Code (VwGO) follows the system of individual legal protection. According to Section 42 (2) VwGO, only those who claim that their own rights ( subjective public law ) have been violated by the administrative act are entitled to take legal action . Until then, only the neighbors were entitled to take legal action against the approval of environmentally hazardous industrial plants, but not interest groups. Only in the area of ​​nature conservation law were there limited possibilities for collective action ( Section 64 BNatSchG ).

The Environmental Remedies Act considerably restricts this principle. For certain environmental decisions and permits, recognized associations now also have a right of action and can complain to the administrative courts that the permit notice is unlawful. In particular, it can also be objected that a required environmental impact assessment has not been carried out ( Section 4 (1) sentence 1 no. 1 UmwRG).

However, this only expanded the group of those entitled to sue; Associations entitled to sue were only able to submit to a judicial review what a subjectively affected person had previously been able to assert. Not included were e.g. B. Aspects of climate protection, not even in a project such. B. the construction of a coal-fired power station.

On May 12, 2011, the ECJ ruled in the “Trianel Proceedings” that a regulation restricting the right of environmental associations to take legal action in Section 2 of the Environmental Appeal Act violates EU law . The decision was taken into account on January 29, 2013 through an amendment to Section 2 UmwRG. Until the change in the law came into force, recognized environmental associations were able to invoke EU law directly to justify their rights of action.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ECJ, judgment of May 12, 2011 , Az. C-115/09, Trianel case.
  2. ↑ Quotation from the information provided by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). June 29, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2017 . With a legal opinion by the UBA ( evaluation of the ECJ ruling of May 12, 2011 , "Trianel proceedings")