Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 7 g (new)
Regulation (EU) 2018/842
Article 15a (new)
(7g) The following article is inserted: “Article 15a Access to justice Member States shall ensure that, in accordance with their national legal system, members of the public concerned who meet the conditions set out in paragraph 2 have access to a review procedure before a court of law, or another independent and impartial body established by law, to challenge failure to comply with the legal obligations provided for in Articles 4 to 8 of this Regulation. 2. Members of the public concerned shall be deemed to meet the conditions referred to in paragraph 1 when: (a) they have sufficient interest; or (b) they allege impairment of a right, where administrative procedural law of a Member State requires that as a precondition. What constitutes a sufficient interest shall be determined by Member States, consistently with the objective of giving the members of the public concerned wide access to justice and in conformity with the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. To that end, the interest of any non- governmental organisation promoting environmental protection and meeting any requirements under national law shall be deemed to have sufficient interest for the purposes of this paragraph. 3. Paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not exclude the possibility of being able to have recourse to a preliminary review procedure before an administrative authority and shall not affect the requirement to exhaust administrative review procedures prior to having recourse to judicial review procedures, where such a requirement exists under national law. Any such procedure shall be fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive. 4. Member States shall ensure that practical information is made easily available to the public on access to administrative and judicial review procedures.’