Use of incorrect legislation passed by the court on the basis of Article 6:22 of the General Administrative Law Act

With the introduction of the Environment Act on 1 January 2024, there is currently often confusion about which legislation exactly applies to a decision: the old or the new?

The main rule is that the Environment Act applies to decisions taken from 1 January 2024 onwards. However, there are exceptions to this main rule. There are cases where the procedure has already started before the Environment Act came into force, but the decision will only be taken after 1 January 2024. In such cases, transitional law ensures that the old regulations apply. For example, a permit application is submitted on 31 December 2023, but a decision is not made until 12 March 2024. The procedure started before 1 January 2024, so the old law applies.

The ruling of the District Court of The Hague of 25 August 2025 shows that mistakes are often made in this regard. In this case, the municipal executive of Noordwijk had wrongly declared the Environment Act applicable to an order subject to a penalty. The intention to impose the order subject to a penalty had already been announced before 1 January 2024. The procedure had therefore started before the Environment Act came into force, which meant that the old legislation had to remain applicable.

Normally, this would be a reason to overturn a decision, but the court ruled otherwise in this case. In this case, the old and new legislation contained the same rules for this specific case, which meant that the plaintiffs and third parties were not disadvantaged by the council's error. The court therefore ruled that this error could be disregarded under Article 6:22 of the General Administrative Law Act. In short, this means that the court ignores the error and treats the case as if the error had not been made, because no one has been harmed by the error.

Do you have any questions about the applicable legislation to a decision you have received or an adopted zoning plan? Please contact Gerard van der Wende or Fleur Huisman.

You can read the ruling here.