SOUTH CAROLINA – A coalition of 11 leading environmental and advocacy organizations, including the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, filed an amicus curiae brief on April 20 in the South Carolina Supreme Court, urging the Court to uphold the legal doctrine of public importance standing.
The brief was filed in response to a case involving the ACLU of South Carolina, where defendants, including Governor McMaster, have asked the Court to eliminate public importance standing – a legal principle that ensures South Carolinians can challenge government actions threatening the most vital public environmental resources, even when no single individual can prove a specific, personal injury.
The brief emphasizes that public importance standing promotes consistency and fairness in the legal system, ensuring that cases involving broad public harm – such as pollution, habitat destruction or mismanagement of public trust resources – can be heard in court. Without it, harmful decisions affecting the state’s most significant natural systems could be unchallengeable, leaving no recourse.
