Ecologistas en Acción increases the processing of environmental matters in the courts

Ecologistas en Acción increases the processing of environmental matters in the courts.

• The different federations and local groups of Ecologists in Action have taken a total of 286 cases to court for the protection of the environment, a figure higher than the 244 cases in 2020.

• Of all these matters pending in courts as of December 31, 2021, 199 belong to the administrative litigation jurisdiction, 85 to the criminal jurisdiction and 2 to the civil jurisdiction.

The subject matter of the different procedures is enormously varied and includes practically all environmental aspects. Among them, for example, licenses or urban plans, livestock trails or public roads, waste facilities, authorizations for quarries, macro farms, mining, transport infrastructure, management of protected spaces, crimes against wildlife and poaching, industrial and sewage treatment waste. , fires in landfills and waste storage plants, and urban prevarication.

It is noteworthy that the legal teams of Ecologistas en Acción are presenting more and more resources denouncing the inactivity of the administration when it comes to protecting the environment. This is the case of the climate demand presented by the insufficient climate ambition of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC).

Likewise, contentious appeals have been presented due to the inactivity of different administrations in relation to the radioactive decontamination of Palomares (Almería), the lack of protection of urban planning legality in Cádiz, the lack of activity in the ex officio recovery of a livestock route in Toledo, in the inventory of municipal roads and in the law on livestock trails in Catalonia, in the state of contaminated water in reservoirs in Galicia, or in the recovery plan for protected species in Catalonia.

Another area in which Ecologists in Action is demanding through contentious-administrative proceedings the inactivity of the central and regional administrations is in relation to non-compliance: that of their legal obligation to prepare and approve air quality plans in areas where, Since 2010, the target values for the protection of health and vegetation established for tropospheric ozone have not been met.

At the regional level, the courts of Castilla y León (2018) and Navarra (2021) have declared that both administrations are obliged to have such plans. The Supreme Court established in 2020 that the regional air quality plans are independent of the National Plan, which is the responsibility of the Central Government. Similar appeals are currently being considered for sentencing in Catalonia and País Valenciá.

Of the 286 cases that Ecologistas en Acción has in different courts, these are the data from a territorial point of view: 84 correspond to Andalusia, 61 to Castilla y León, 23 to Madrid, 23 to Murcia, 19 to Catalonia, 16 to Cantabria , 15 to Castilla-La Mancha, 14 to Extremadura, 9 to Aragón, 7 to the Valencian Country, 5 to Galicia, 3 to Euskadi, 3 to the Canary Islands, 2 to Navarra, 1 to Melilla and 1 to Asturias.