The High Court has narrowed the remaining issues in People Over Wind’s environmental information case after reconsidering what caused delays in the appeal process involving Coillte.
Mr Justice Humphreys originally delivered the judgment on 10 February 2026 and substantially amended it on 8 July. The proceedings concern a request under the Access to Information on the Environment regime and a December 2024 decision by the Commissioner for Environmental Information to annul Coillte’s decision and remit the request for a second internal review.
An earlier High Court judgment had proposed referring questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union about whether EU and Aarhus Convention requirements for timely, effective remedies limited the Commissioner’s ability to remit a case rather than finally determine it.
That reference was initially sent to Luxembourg but was later withdrawn while the High Court reconsidered the factual basis for its questions.
Following a detailed review, the judge found that the second remittal itself did not cause the main delay. Instead, delay resulted principally from the Commissioner’s decision to select a different appeal as a lead case on the relevant legal issue. Compared with leaving People Over Wind’s appeal pending while that lead case was decided, the remittal may actually have enabled a quicker final decision.
The judgment records that the wider process nevertheless took an excessive period. It notes a nine-month delay before the Commissioner acted on an earlier High Court ruling, backlogs within the Commissioner’s office and delays by Coillte in responding to correspondence.
However, strict judicial-review pleading rules meant many potential arguments arising from those circumstances could not now be pursued because they had not been specifically pleaded.
The court identified two remaining issues: whether the fact that this was a second remittal breached requirements of timeliness or expedition, and whether repeated remittal breached the right to an effective remedy.
Those issues are to be addressed in a reconfigured No. 3 judgment, either by deciding them domestically or referring them to the CJEU. The present judgment therefore does not finally determine People Over Wind’s challenge.