The Centre for Environmental Democracy Florozon, in cooperation with the Environmental Law and Management Association from Hungary, started implementing the project “Equal Access for Effective Justice”. The first meeting of the National Coordinative Body was organized on 19.03.2019 in Hotel Karposh, as one of the starting project activities. The National Coordinative Body includes representatives from the project target groups: the state institutions, civil society organizations and academia.
“The citizens’ awareness for the legal mechanisms at disposal related to the right of a healthy environment is very low. According to the Ombudsman’s Office report from 2017, only 22 complaints were filed in the area of environment, which is a disappointing number, considering the unfortunately high pollution levels, especially air pollution, in our country” said Angela Dimeska, Project Assistant at Florozon.
“The citizens’ awareness for the legal mechanisms at disposal related to the right of a healthy environment is very low. According to the Ombudsman’s Office report from 2017, only 22 complaints were filed in the area of environment, which is a disappointing number, considering the unfortunately high pollution levels, especially air pollution, in our country” said Angela Dimeska, Project Assistant at Florozon.
Gordana Nestorovska, President of the Association for Social Innovations and Sustainable Development RADAR, mentioned that the citizens are not sufficiently informed about the possibilities they have, and the mechanisms are not working the way they should. She emphasized the citizens have their Constitutional right to a healthy environment, and this Body will make an attempt in improving the level of cooperation among the civil society organizations and the state institutions. The conclusions of the meeting confirmed the necessity of strengthening the capacities of the civil society organizations for raising the public awareness and the significance of a platform of debating equal access to justice in terms of a healthy environment.