On January 22, 2013 Lviv Appellate Economic Court denied an appeal of a private company and upheld the decision of the lower court of August 31, 2012 granting Environment-People-Law access to company’s documents containing environmental information. For almost two years EPL fought for court interpretation and application of a new progressive provision of the Law on Access to Public Information which obliges private entities to allow public access to environmental information in their possession. Notwithstanding an explicit wording of the Law the industry kept rejecting requests for information on the impact of their activities on the environment. In November of 2011, EPL brought a lawsuit against a private enterprise polluting the ambient air in order to establish court practice with regard to this new provision of the law.We lost both in local and appellate courts and only the High Economic Court of Ukraine overturning these decisions. The High Court held that the defendant shall be considered to be under the same duties with regard to environmental information as public authorities within the meaning of the Law of Ukraine on Access to Public Information and ordered a retrial.
On August 31, 2012 EPL won the new trial and since the company lost its appeal on January 22 the decision in favor of EPL finally became affective.
For further information please contact
Yelyzaveta Aleksyeyeva
Senior lawyer at EPL
+ 38 032 225 76 82
