New planning and environmental court to be operational from Monday

A new planning and environment court will be formally launched at a ceremony in the High Court on Monday.

The Attorney General, Rossa Fanning; the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee; and the president of the High Court, Mr Justice David Barniville will be among those attending the ceremony.

When the establishment of the new court was approved by Cabinet a year ago, Minister McEntee said, along with reforms to planning legislation, the court would improve case processing and reduce costs, consistent with Ireland’s obligations under EU environmental law.

“Planning and environmental judicial review cases are a notable feature of Ireland’s planning and statutory consenting processes,” she said. “The ability to deal with these cases efficiently and effectively is critical to the State’s delivery of housing and infrastructure, and in protecting the environment.”

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The new court, a division of the High Court with three specialist judges assigned to it, will operate in a similar way to the Commercial Court.

It replaces the High Court’s commercial planning list which has been managed since October 2020 by Mr Justice Richard Humphreys.

Mr Justice David Holland was assigned to the list two years ago and, after the Government approved the appointment of additional High Court judges, Ms Justice Emily Farrell was assigned last autumn.

All three judges will deal with cases as judges of the new planning and environment court and Mr Justice Humphreys will manage the court’s list.

Litigation in the planning and environment list will be governed by a lengthy new practice direction, signed by Mr Justice Barniville, which comes into operation on Monday.

The direction states the purpose of the list is “to provide as efficient a processing as is consistent with justice” of planning and environmental cases and related cases.

It provides cases shall be assigned different levels of priority and the court’s business will be managed to ensure capacity is retained to deal speedily with urgent cases such as those concerning large-scale projects of strategic importance, or matters of significant environmental impact.

The specific goals of the list include providing a specialised mechanism to process cases across a comprehensive definition of the planning and environmental field, compliant with the Aarhus Convention, the EU law right to an effective remedy and other applicable domestic, European and international standards.

Other specific goals include to maximise use of resources and minimise costs through case management to minimise the need for, or incidence of, multiple pretrial applications.

The commercial planning list has processed about 300 cases since October 2020.

Of those, about half have been finalised with most of the remainder awaiting hearing or under settlement.

Legal sources estimate it takes about nine months from when a case is initiated to its determination. An appeal against a decision will add to the duration of the legal proceedings.

Most of the legal actions concerning strategic housing developments have been determined with the vast bulk of judgments in favour of the challengers. The effect of that is many proposed developments are back in the planning process.

About 10 cases relate to different county development plans.

The commencement of the new court comes in the wake of the publication in October of a mammoth Bill aimed at a major overhaul of the planning system. The 700-page Planning and Development Bill 2023, provides, inter alia, for a restructuring of An Bord Pleanála, new restrictions on planning judicial reviews and mandatory statutory timelines across all consenting processes.