Read ERCS’s new briefing which evaluates the latest changes to Scotland’s Protective Expenses Order (PEO) rules, and asks why the SCJC’s review failed to address all of the recommendations made by Aarhus Convention’s governing institutions.
Ahead of Scotland’s deadline to improve access to justice on environmental issues by October 2024, the Scottish Civil Justice Council (SCJC) has published an amendment to court rules.
PEO rules have been updated to address Scotland’s long-standing breach of the UNECE Aarhus Convention’s requirement that access to justice in environmental matters must be ‘not prohibitively expensive’.
The new amendment, while positive in some aspects, has not gone far enough and the October 2024 deadline for fixing access to justice will not be met in Scotland.
