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Judicial review changes announced
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has announced changes to the judicial review procedure ‘so it cannot be used anymore as a cheap delaying tactic’. The Ministry of Justice had published a consultation on the proposed changes to judicial review, which ended in January. The new measures are expected to be introduced by the summer and they include:
•a £215 court fee for anyone seeking a hearing in person after their initial written judicial review application has been turned down;
•banning people from seeking a hearing in person if their initial written application has been ruled as totally without merit;
•reducing the time limit for applying for a judicial review of a procurement decision from three months to four weeks.
The consultation on legal aid (see above) also includes a provision to only pay for legal aid in judicial review cases if the application for permission is successful. The bulk of judicial review cases relate to immigration. The government argues that out of 8,734 immigration judicial review applications made in 2011 only 607 were considered suitable for a hearing. But lawyers acting for immigration clients point out that many claims are dropped before the hearing because the UK Border Agency is forced to concede that it was wrong when it made its initial decision.
Jonathan Manning, a barrister at Arden Chambers and the author of a book on judicial review, the third edition of which will be published by LAG later this year, believes that the oral review of a case provides: ‘a reasonably quick and effective cross-check that permission has not been wrongly refused on the papers. The danger of these proposals is that that cross-check will be lost causing injustice. This is particularly possible in urgent cases where new material may well emerge after the initial paper consideration’. He also criticised the proposals for increasing fees and removing legal aid for the permission stage as ‘yet another obstacle to fair access to justice’.