Germans given right to litigate against nukes

By Diet Simon

People living near nuclear installations in Germany have been given the right to litigate against them.

This is the upshot of a ruling by the country's highest administrative court, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht in Leipzig. The case file is BVerwG 7 C 39.07.

Plaintiffs living near the ever-troubled Brunsbüttel nuclear power station near Hamburg, the second largest German city, had complained that safety precautions against terrorist attacks on the station's waste depot were inadequate.
A lower court had thrown out their complaint.

The new precedent ruling forces courts to hear and rule on residents' complaints about licensing authorities not having given enough consideration to protection measures.

"Residents near atomic installations are vulnerable to a ‘special risk potential', including from possible terrorist attack," said judge Wolfgang Sailer.

Hence the court took the view that it would "breach federal law" to deny them the right to a court appraisal of their individual protection against such things as deliberate plane crashes or attacks with armour-piercing weapons, Sailer said.

"That has finally strengthened the rights of those affected," commented Francis Althoff, the spokesman of the group resisting dumping of nuclear waste near the north German village of Gorleben (search for more on Gorleben on this site).

"The judgment must also be seen as a clear order to licensing authorities and operators to take the rights of the population seriously and quickly make available information about potential dangers," he said.

Already at the end of 2001 the German branch of Greenpeace had applied to the licensing authority to withdraw the Gorleben operating licence.

A thorough investigation was promised, but in 2003 a legal complaint about inactivity had to be filed.
Only at the end of last year the Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), which reports to the German environment ministry, released a summary prepared by the TÜV technical inspection organisation.

Greenpeace is considering what further action to take. The Gorleben action group welcomes the Leipzig ruling and is also considering further legal action against the dump.

For mainstream media reporting on the ruling in German see http://www.google.com.au/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIG_enAU222AU223&q=Sailer+Brunsb%c3%bcttel+.

Francis Althoff 05843 986789

Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg e.V.
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Büro: Tel: 05841-4684 Fax: -3197
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