Community & Environment Protection Association Inc v Department Head, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action [No 2] [2026] VSC 464 — Security For Costs & Mining And Mineral Resources — Barrister AI
Community & Environment Protection Association Inc v Department Head, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action [No 2]
› Stultification — evidentiary burden on members standing behind association
Practice and procedure
› Security for costs
› Quantum — proportionality and costs already incurred
Quick Take
1An incorporated association whose members have personal interests in the outcome (amenity and property values) and whose primary motivation is protection of those interests cannot characterise its litigation as sufficiently in the public interest to resist security for costs, even where the proceeding raises legal questions of broader application under the relevant statute.
2Where an impecunious incorporated association resists security for costs on stultification grounds, it bears the evidentiary burden of establishing not only its own inability to pay but also the inability or reasonable unwillingness of its members — those who stand behind it and benefit from the litigation — to provide security; bare assertions of unwillingness without evidence of financial position are insufficient.
3The quantum of security must be 'just and reasonable' — not so low as to provide no real protection, nor so high as to be oppressive — and should generally not include costs already incurred where the application was delayed through no fault of the applicant.
