Case C-664/15 Protec Natur-Arten und Landschaftsschutz Umweltorganisation, 20/12/2017, o.c., Under Austrian law, “only natural and legal persons who are parties to the administrative procedure can bring an action before a court in order to claim that theirs rights have been infringed”. The Court of Justice considers that such procedural rule “is contrary to the requirements flowing from a combined reading of article 9 (3 of the Aarhus Convention and Article 17 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights”. In addition, as underlined by the Court of Justice “participation in an environmental decision-making procedure is separate and has a different purpose from judicial proceedings, since the latter may, in some circumstances, be directed at a decision adopted at the end of that procedure”. The Court also concluded that the Article 9 (3 & 4) of the Aarhus Convention read in conjunction with article 47 of the Charter must be interpreted as precluding (…) a national procedural rule that imposes a time limit on an environmental organisation, pursuant to which a person losses the status of party to the procedure and therefore cannot bring an action against the decision resulting from the procedure if it failed to submit objections in good time following the opening of the administrative procedure and, at the very latest, during the oral phase of that procedure”.