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On Monday, the High Court
quashed the regulations which introduced conditional funding for judicial review, following its judgment that the
Lord Chancellor's decision to introduce them was irrational. Three days later, the Lord Chancellor today laid a fresh set of regulations, which come into force tomorrow (27 March). The new regulations re-impose conditional funding in exactly the same way as before, with the exception that payment is now permitted in two more situations. The
Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 provide that, for all certificates
granted applied for on or after 27 March 2015, payment for judicial review work done pre-permission is conditional on one of the following:
the court giving permission;
the defendant withdrawing the decision which the JR challenges, with the result that the court refuses permission or makes no decision on permission;
the court orders an oral permission hearing or an oral hearing of an appeal against a refusal of permission;
the court orders a rolled up hearing; or
the court neither grants nor refuses permission and the Lord Chancellor considers it reasonable to pay remuneration in the circumstances of the case, taking into account, in particular:
the reason why no costs order or agreement was obtained;
the extent to which, and why, the outcome sought was achieved; and
the strength of the application for permission at the time it was filed, based on the law and on facts which the provider knew or ought to have known at the time. This is a slight extension from the irrational regulations of the situations in which payment may be made, to add oral and rolled up hearings and cases where the defendant concedes pre-permission. Whether that is enough to stave off any future challenge to these regulations will remain to be seen. But it is most unfortunate that the Lord Chancellor decided to slip, unannounced, these regulations out on the last day Parliament was sitting before the election, and that the Legal Aid Agency hasn't made any announcement or done anything to publicise a change in the legal aid scheme before it comes into force. UPDATE 27 March The transitional provisions say that the new regulations apply to certificates applied for from 27 March. Applications signed before 27 March and received by the LAA by 5pm on 31 March aren't caught by the new regulations, nor are applications submitted through CCMS before 27 March or grants of emergency representation made before 27 March and received by the LAA, or uploaded through CCMS, within 5 days. Existing certificates to which new JR proceedings are added on or after 27 March will be subject to the new rules.