The Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected appeals lodged against the Brussels ordinance on smart gas and electricity meters
The Court ruled that requiring a non-electrosensitive person to install a smart meter did not violate the right to protection of a healthy environment.
In 2020, the Court had annulled the provisions of a 2018 text on the same subject because, by not allowing electrosensitive people to refuse the installation of a smart meter or to request its removal, it did not provide an adequate regime for them.
The ordinance was amended in response to that ruling but, in the eyes of two associations and a few individuals, the amended text does not go far enough.
The Groupe de Réflexion et d’Action Pour une Politique Ecologique (GRAPPE) and the Association pour la Reconnaissance de l’ElectroHyperSensibilité (AREHS) criticise it for limiting the right to demand the installation of a meter that does not emit electromagnetic waves to persons who can prove their electrosensitivity.
In their view, the electromagnetic waves emitted by smart meters are also harmful to the health of people who are not electrosensitive.
The Constitutional Court ruled against them. The degree of protection for people who do not suffer from electrosensitivity is not reduced, it pointed out.
As for those who claim their health is endangered by exposure to the electromagnetic fields of a smart meter, the Court notes that, as far as gas meters are concerned, the contested provisions increase the degree of protection compared with previous legislation.
Where electricity meters are concerned, when the contested provisions are compared with the previous legislation, there is no evidence of any reduction in the degree of protection, the Court found.
