Failure to sue Portuguese State sees application to appeal to Supreme Court
Three organisations intent on suing the Portuguese State for non-compliance with the Basic Climate Law have criticised the rejection of the popular action – and the way the process was carried out – and announced their appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a joint statement, NGOs Último Recurso, Quercus and Sciaena have “acknowledged going all the way to the European Court of Human Rights” (ECHR).
For now, this effort of climate litigation is focused on reaching the Supreme Court to ensure that the government “fulfils commitments adopted in the Basic Climate Law”.
The basic law was approved two years ago, writes Lusa. But last November, the three organisations sued the State claiming it had failed to comply. The government programme that came into effect a week ago acknowledged that “much” remains “unfulfilled”.
The authors of the popular action criticise the way the process was conducted: “After more than four months without a response to this action, a complaint was filed last week with the Superior Council of Magistrates against the judge of the Civil Court of Lisbon” and after the complaint was reported – by Expresso – “the judge issued the sentence and rejected the petition”.
“Since the lawsuit was filed, and while the judge did not rule on it, Portugal has continued to suffer the effects of climate change, such as drought in the Algarve and extreme or higher than normal temperatures for this time of year,” the organisations lament.
Mariana Gomes, president of Último Recurso, rejected the judge’s claim that the petition was “abstract, generic and obscure”, saying it “includes, point by point”, everything that the Basic Climate Law encompasses, and the respective deadlines that have yet to be met.
The three organisations listed part of what remains to be done two years on – namely the implementation of a “carbon budget, a climate action portal, a national energy and climate plan and sectoral plans for mitigation” of a problem that is already having national repercussions.
Failure to comply with the legislation is “especially reprehensible in the wake of extreme temperatures and other unprecedented damage in the country“, add the organisations.
Lawyer Ricardo Sá Fernandes has criticised the judge’s decision to dismiss the action outright suggests “a legal insensitivity and hastiness that are shocking“, in contrast to what the ECHR decided at the beginning of last week in Strasbourg (France), with regard to the ‘grandmothers for the climate’ case.
Mariana Gomes agrees that the case of these Swiss senior citizens “is very similar” to Portugal’s popular action, except that in the grandmothers’ case, there was no specific Climate Law. In other words, Portugal’s case has an added reason for being accepted (and yet it was summarily dismissed).
Source material: LUSA
