The High Court has directed further submissions on questions it intends in principle to refer to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a dispute over whether people seeking environmental information must provide their real names and physical addresses.
Coillte brought the appeal against the Commissioner for Environmental Information after the Commissioner ruled in an August 2022 decision covering 58 appeals that Coillte was not justified in treating the requests as invalid. The requests were made under names Coillte considered anonymous or pseudonymous. The company had sought confirmation of the requesters’ names and addresses; the information was not provided.
The judgment describes Coillte receiving 97 such requests, of which 81 were appealed to the Commissioner. The Commissioner’s decision addressed the first 58 appeals together, leaving 23 for later decision. Coillte challenged both the Commissioner’s jurisdiction to consider appeals arising from requests it had rejected as invalid and the Commissioner’s conclusion on the identity information Coillte could require.
Justice Humphreys did not resolve those questions in the judgment delivered on 22 November 2023. He identified six proposed questions concerning the meaning of “request” and “applicant” under EU environmental information law, and whether EU law permits or precludes requirements for an actual name or current physical address. Other proposed questions concern whether an authority may seek identity confirmation where it has a reasonable concern about the genuineness of the details, and whether identity can be checked when assessing whether requests are manifestly unreasonable.
The judge said the issues were necessary to decide the appeal and were not clear enough to resolve without a CJEU ruling. He ordered the questions to be referred in principle, but the judgment sets out further procedural steps before the reference is prepared: simultaneous written submissions within 14 days and service of the papers on the Chief State Solicitor’s Office within seven days. The State could contribute to the proposed reference and to a possible later issue about the regulations’ compatibility with EU law.
The court reserved costs. The judgment does not determine whether the requests were valid, whether the Commissioner had jurisdiction, or whether Coillte was entitled to seek the identity details. It also does not record that the CJEU reference had yet been made.