Access to Justice

With regard to short-term action plans, the Court of Justice answered this question in the affirmative (case C-237/07, Janecek). It held that plans intended to eliminate the threat to human health as quickly as possible and that the elaboration of a plan was the consequence foreseen by EU legislation for cases that alert thresholds were at risk of being exceeded. These findings also apply to air quality plans under Article 23 of Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC; indeed, in cases under Article 23, limit values are not only at risk of being exceeded, but are actually exceeded which makes the threat to human health even greater.

The Court of Justice limited the right of persons to request a specific content of a plan (case C-237/07, Janecek). It held that the public authorities were to take measures to keep the time of (the risk of) exceedance as short as possible, but that they benefitted from a large amount of discretion, so that specific measures could not be asked for. As regards German law, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht in case 7 C21.12 clarified that a progressive reduction of the air pollution was not necessarily in compliance with EU law; it could be controlled by courts whether such a reduction was really reached as quickly as possible. The United Kingdom Supreme Court in the UKSC 28 judgment ClientEarth v. Secretary of State also decided that the question - whether an air quality plan (under Article 23 of Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC) brought down the air pollution as quickly as possible - was subject to judicial control. As an individual person has no rights, he/she can only point out before the court with the measures, which may help to bring the air pollution back to the required values.