news from the court..., page-9

Well, it appears that the Anti Lynas group has fired all it's ammunition. The AELB is now required to put forward an affidavit responding to the claims being:
1) That there was no 'detailed' EIA submitted.
2) That there was a conflict of interest, because Lynas is required to pay the AELB a percentage of it's revenue.

In addition the affidavit is to 'explain the approval'

Not sure how Malaysian law operates, but you would assume that as long as these issues can be answered clearly, the case is won by the AELB. I would be surprised if the anti Lynas group can then come up with other objections once these points have been responded too and concluded. Therefore, I take this as then being the end of the matter as far the High Court is concerned.

I'm certainly no lawyer, but if the key term in regards to the EIA is 'detailed', then only the Department of Environment who issued the EIA would be in a position to determine if the application was detailed enough for the purposes of permit issuance, since they issued it, it MUST have been detailed enough. Who else could determine this other than the relevant issuing body.

The other point relating to conflict of interest is quite frankly absurd, and I'm surprised that the anti Lynas lawyers would be so naive as to put this up as an objection, it really smacks of desperation to pad out their case. As most posters here know, Lynas is paying the AELB for the ongoing cost of air monitoring, and pay for the use of the independent inspector, part of the TOL conditions.

Finally the need to explain to the judge what exactly has been approved. The important aspect here is that the approval is for a 2 year 'TEMPORARY' operating license. This would provide additional assurance to the judge that the license is a 'work in progress' and that nothing is set in stone.
All in all, my impression is that this would be a fairly simple response by the AELB team.