Philippine campaingners’ legal protetion increased
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In a world first the Supreme Court of the Philippines has issued groundbreaking rules on how environmental cases should be handled which will come into force later this week.
The procedures have rebalanced the legal process between campaigners and corporate or government bodies and made quick and accessible legal mechanisms available to those who wish to protect limit needless environmental damage.
The procedures include the following provisions:
Access to the law by any citizen
A cheap civil law mechanism allows any citizen to bring a complaint against a company or government body with many of the usual legal fees waived.
The complaint must be answered within 15 days and certain defences are barred in order to ensure the matter is resolved within a year. (more…)