Judicial Review and Courts Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Janet Daby

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am also inspired to speak in this debate. I think that I would be doing my constituents an injustice if I were not to say something on this really important issue. I give credit to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, who tried to give more of a human approach, through the experience of the person who went through the court proceedings to do with Venezuela. I appreciate her attempt to do that, although it was not very well received by Government Members.

I just want to share a few things. I do not come from a legal background, but I do come from a social care background, and I have worked with refugees and asylum seekers in the past. People may or may not be aware of some of the really abusive situations that they face when they are travelling from their country of origin and try to find passage over here. Some of the stories that I am aware of involving young people and children, although the clause is not necessarily about children, are absolutely horrific. People are raped, abused and threatened at gunpoint to be silent. It is very disturbing to hear of those cases. When there is not enough evidence, or evidence is not being received properly, during the first court hearing and the second, but it is found, during the third hearing, that actually there is a clearer understanding and a clarity that then would go on to save somebody from suffering a level of persecution if they were returned to their country of origin, I think that is worth while.

I do not want to take up too much time, but I will briefly talk about just one case that I happened to work on when I was working as a social worker. It involved a person who was seeking political asylum at the time. He went through the process three times and eventually received status in this country. But on one occasion, his parent was very ill and on the brink of death, so he decided to go back to his country of origin. I am not going to name names or countries, because of confidentiality, but he went back to that country to try to see his mother. Then his wife frantically came to me to say, “He hasn’t returned home on his flight. He’s been missing for two days. Can you help?” At the time, I did not know what to do to help, but I contacted the embassy, and the embassy contacted the country, and found out this person’s identity and that he had been put in prison. It was almost as if the keys had been thrown away because they realised who he was. After the contact that I was able to make with the Government, they were able to put him on a flight back, because somebody showed some care in his situation.

My point is that we are talking about human beings and human lives. We are talking about saving people from persecution and death if they return to certain countries of origin. I am talking specifically about asylum seekers and people who need refuge in our country.

[Andy Slaughter]

We are debating the merits of clause 2 as a whole. We will not support clause stand part for two reasons. First, we believe that it insulates serious cases from judicial review, and not a small number of those. Secondly, it opens the door to wider use of ouster, which should be resisted, or at least examined closely.

As I listened carefully to the Minister and Government Back Benchers, I identified essentially two arguments. One is that in supporting Cart judicial review there is some element of special pleading—the fruit-based analogy, if we can put it that way. The second is that the clause would in some way address the court backlog. I said a bit about that, but let me deal with it briefly. I am not entirely sure how a relatively small amendment, in terms of cost and the number of cases, to the way judicial review works will assist with the Crown court backlog of 60,000 cases. The idea that the solution is to get rid of Cart judicial review rather than having sufficient Crown Prosecution Service prosecutors, defence counsel and recorders or, indeed, a sufficient number of courts is a fantasy. Can we not set that aside?

Judicial Review and Courts Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Janet Daby

Committee stage
Thursday 4th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes exactly the right point. He did not hear me paying tribute to him when he was temporarily detained elsewhere. I am pleased that, as an experienced shadow Minister, he is on the Committee.

People in charge of public authorities should welcome judicial review, which, like many court and tribunal processes, is a way to scrutinise and improve decision making either directly through a challenge or because they want to avoid such a challenge. In my humble way, I remember the 10 years or so when I was running a local authority, and unless other members of the Committee were also in that position—there may well have been—I have probably been subject to more judicial reviews than anyone on the Committee. I must say that while we can take a view on the merits of an individual case, the process is generally beneficial for the authority. As my hon. Friend said, what have they got to hide?

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that judicial reviews are a part of the checks and balances on Government?

[Andy Slaughter]

I absolutely agree. It is an important part of those constitutional checks and balances, and it has become more important. In a country without a written constitution, it is totally appropriate that a common-law process such as judicial review should develop as it has. I do not mean that it is excessive or that it has grown out of control; it has simply moved with the times in a way in which our senior courts in particular are able to do. As I say, the Bill is a clear attempt to reduce proper accountability for state actions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

Does my hon. Friend agree that all sorts of consequences arise from the proposed measures? They are likely to make things much more complicated and less clear, and to provoke further litigation.

[Andy Slaughter]

Yes, and I am grateful for that reminder. I have a little more to say on the Stonehenge case and I will mention one other case that is familiar to Members. However, my hon. Friend makes exactly the point: there is mischief caused here. However many times the Government say, “This is designed to simplify and extend the powers,” the less credible that seems when one looks at the actual nature and type of decisions that would be affected, and at how they would be affected.

In the Stonehenge case, the likely effect of the order would be to remove the possibility for collateral claims for compensation against the Government for their unlawful decision up to the date of the prospective order. All preceding activity, including expense in performance of any contracts that the judicial review court may not be fully aware of, if at all, are reliant on the unlawful decision would be considered lawful to the date of the order, even though the full contracts could not be completed. This could cause significant loss to contractors who were not present to make representations during the hearing, as they could potentially only claim for losses thereafter.

The other case I will mention is the Unison case, which is another important real-world example. It is worth considering the impact that prospective-only remedies could have had if they had applied in that case, which concerned, as I think all Members know, fees to access employment tribunals. Having found that Parliament could never have intended a clear derogation from the right of access to justice, the Supreme Court quashed the order that required individuals to pay to use the employment tribunal.

The remedial consequence of the quashing order was that the Government were required to retrospectively refund the claimants who had been charged fees. A prospective-only remedy in this scenario would have denied the claimants this refund and therefore would have been a serious injustice to the claimants, whose fundamental right to access to justice had been found to have been violated.