Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. He and I used to hack around the Bedford Quarter Sessions, appearing in front of that terrifying tribunal, the then Geoffrey Lane QC. We learned a good deal in that court. Judges were much tougher in those days than they are now.

I also draw the House’s attention to the amazingly stalwart, stout-hearted support that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, gave to those of us who were attacking the legality of the internal market Bill. I was personally very grateful to him throughout that process, and the House should continue to be grateful to him for it. I was also interested to note his anxiety that the Bill does not go far enough, so let me take something completely different that nobody else has spoken about yet.

I ask your Lordships to consider Clauses 17 and 29, which give the Minister lovely Henry VIII powers, which will enable him, by regulation, to go back to the other place and offer the strengthening that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, would welcome, and to do so by way of subsidiary regulation. Please can we watch out for that? It is a double Henry VIII clause: one for Chapter 1 and one for Chapter 2.

Beyond that—and trying not to repeat what everybody has said—let us look at Clause 1(8), which reads:

“In deciding whether to exercise a power under subsection (1), the court must have regard to—”.


There is one astonishing omission. What is wrong with the interests of justice? It is a simple concept; we all understand it. The words

“any other matter that appears to the court to be relevant”

do not do the trick. What about the interests of justice?

I hope that the Minister will kindly confirm that “good reason” in Clause 1(9) may be found if the order would not provide adequate redress. I think he said so. If that is the case, will he confirm it at the Dispatch Box? If that is the case, why purport to add a whole series of discretionary elements to what starts off as a discretionary remedy? We do not need it.

As to Clause 2, I support the view that Cart should be overruled, but I wonder whether we need the words

“and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any other court”

and then, “In particular” (a) and (b), because the whole of Cart is remedied by simply going from “the decision is final” to the “supervisory jurisdiction” text as set out in new subsection (3)(b). If that comes into force, the judicial review proceedings in Cart cannot be repeated. I think that I have spoken long enough.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

That is what subsection (10) is about. The Minister is looking confused by me saying that, but that is what it is aiming at, and it is why the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is raising it as a potentially sinister measure. If we are to have new Section 29A(1)(a) and (b)—I can live with subsection (1)(a), but I cannot live with subsection (1)(b)—and if the Minister is true to his word, it is a tool in the toolbox; let the judges decide in accordance with a wide discretion. That is why my noble friend Lord Ponsonby’s suggestion of saying “in the interests of justice” is more than adequate. Let the judges decide in accordance with that sort of principle whether they use it. Let us not tilt it in favour of the Government. This provision looks to be biased legislation; it is not legislation that is genuinely and objectively trying to improve judicial review.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I had no intention of intervening in this debate, but the question that seems to arise is this: why are we giving a presumption which is in favour of the wrongdoer?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely support the removal of the presumption. I will never try to achieve the brevity of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but he is absolutely right: this is a presumption in favour of the wrongdoer.

The only reason my name is not on Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is that I failed to secure a place among the first four supporters who were rushing to support the amendment. There is no getting away from the fact that, by new Section 29A(9), the Bill proposes making the exercise of the Clause 1 powers, prima facie at least, mandatory. If the “adequate redress” condition is met, and unless the court sees good reason not to do so, it must exercise both powers—not just one of the powers, according to the statute—both to suspend to suspend or delay the quashing order and to make it prospective only.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that this presumption colours the approach that is required to be taken by judges. I believe that understates the position. He was also right to say that it was dangerous and wrong in principle.

The Minister’s position on behalf of the Government is that the court is not bound to exercise these powers if it sees good reason not to do so. It follows from that that these are therefore wide discretionary powers and that any judges worth their salt—if I may paraphrase what he was saying at Second Reading—would find ways of not applying the presumption. If that is right then the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is right that subsection (9) is entirely unnecessary. If the judge were to be entitled to exercise a wide discretion, there would be no reason to mandate the exercise of the powers in any particular way and we would be back to the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that the Government should trust the judges. I fear that the only reason the Government want to have the powers exercised on a mandatory basis is to ensure that there is a default position. That is why it has been correctly labelled a presumption. My noble friend Lord Beith’s analogy is absolutely right: if you have a toolbox, you should not be bound to use any particular tool, whether it is right or wrong for the job in hand.

My noble friend Lord Beith was also right on the question of “adequate redress” as an unsatisfactory and difficult-to-interpret test. Not only would it encourage unnecessary appeals, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, but it is also entirely unclear for whom the redress has to be adequate. The natural meaning of the words would be adequate for the applicant, but that is wrong in a public law case; it has to be adequate for every person materially affected. That is the point made in the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, although she modified her position on it slightly in addressing it today. Other parties affected need to be protected, not just because that is at the essence of public law but because those other parties are, by definition, not before the court and not personally represented when the judicial review application is made.

The Minister’s approach that judges will not regard themselves as bound by the presumption because they have this wide discretion, I suspect, underestimates the loyalty to the law felt by judges. Where there is a paradigm case that calls for the exercise of the power, under the compulsory wording of the Bill judges will strive to give effect to the will of Parliament and the principle that the law is there to be obeyed. That is embedded in their DNA. Therefore, the Government’s view that judges will bend over backwards to find ways around the presumption so as to avoid legalising unlawful acts of government is deeply cynical. It may shed significant light on the Government’s view of the rule of law, but it is completely inaccurate about the approach of the judges, who will apply the presumption if it becomes law lawfully and in so doing will considerably weaken the effect of judicial review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

There are two parts of the answer to that. First, there are, as I said earlier, many judicial reviews in which it is not “the Government” in the way that the phrase “the Government” is used.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, because the second point ties into a point I was going to come to. It is, I am afraid, a longer response than the speech which provoked it from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who said that this is a presumption in favour of the wrongdoer. I will try to answer the two points together. With great respect, I disagree for this reason: the presumption is not a presumption in favour of the wrongdoer. It is a presumption in favour of finding the appropriate remedy for the facts of the case. As we have heard, rightly, from a number of noble Lords, the claimant might not be the person who is actually most affected by the decision in question. There could be a whole class of people who are very severely affected by the decision in question who are not before the court. The claimant, who is before the court, is affected because they are sufficiently affected to have standing, but they may not be affected to the same degree. Therefore, it may not matter too much to the claimant as to whether the remedy is given. It may, on the facts of the case, not even matter too much to the defendant whether this remedy is given, but it may well affect third parties.

Another benefit of the presumption is that the court, so to speak, has to go through that thought process of whether this would be the appropriate remedy, thinking about people—we talked about the factors in subsection (8) earlier—who are not before the court, because on the facts of a particular case, the claimant may not actually be too bothered about whether these remedies are used. The defendant may not be too bothered whether the remedies are used, but it could well affect the position of third parties. Therefore, with respect, I dispute the proposition that this is a presumption in favour of the wrongdoer. It is in favour of the appropriate remedy.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

Why is the interests of justice test not quite sufficient for your purposes?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I think I replied to that point in the previous group. The interests of justice test is subsumed here because you can use these remedies only where there is no good reason not to do so; in other words, if there is a good reason not to do so, you cannot use the remedies. Therefore, necessarily, every time you are considering whether to use the remedies, it is in the interests of justice to do so.

If I may repackage the noble and learned Lord’s question, it really is: why not just say, “in the interests of justice”, or have a freestanding discretion? That point was put by a number of members of the Committee and gets me back to my point that we want jurisprudence to develop, and we want the court positively to consider these remedies. This is not least because there could be cases—the music copyright case is one—where these remedies would be very helpful to third parties, while the instant parties to the case may not be too bothered whether they are used or not.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 31st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, as I have reminded your Lordships’ House before, I have no legal training and so I will use very simple language here.

I have a huge amount of respect for the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and I just cannot believe that he is going to convince the House that the Government are right on this because even from a simple point of view, which is what I am going to express, it seems an unjustified attack on the rule of law. Clause 1 is wrong in essence. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, mentioned an extra club in the bag for judges. I immediately thought of one of the clubs that early humans would have carried around to kill wolves or whatever, but of course he meant a golf club. I can see that he might think an extra golf club is useful, but judges do not need it. Judicial reviews are already difficult, by design, to bring. There are very short timescales in which any claimant can initiate proceedings, and this will reduce the impact on certainty of decision-making. The Government want these hurdles to still be in place, making it hard to win a claim, but now even if you win there is almost no point in bothering.

Restricting judicial reviews in this way will undermine good government. It prevents justice for people who have been done wrong by public authorities, and it lets wrong decisions stand, even where those decisions were unlawful, irrational or procedurally unfair. Democracy goes only so far. Without being tied to the rule of law, we face the tyranny of the majority and an elected dictatorship, which, I argue, is what we have already. My noble friend and I will vote for all these amendments, as unlawful decisions must not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I am in the happy position of having somebody agree with me on every point—but not everybody agrees. The Minister is a remarkable advocate. If he came to my home and we had a family cat, after he had spoken for about two minutes the cat would be convinced that if it wanted a fish, it should dive deep down into the sea, find one at the bottom and bring it out.

The Bill provides a new, additional remedy, and it is a very wise step. Can we please consider situations in which judicial review is involved? A massive judicial review proceeds against—it does not matter who—the Government, a ministry, a local authority, and at the end of the hearing the judge finds there is no unlawfulness about this, that and the other, but yes, there was a moment when the decision-making process was flawed because a small procedural step was not taken. It should be open to the court, having listened to arguments on both sides, to say that that procedural irregularity, although demonstrated, has not affected anybody and therefore the order will not be quashed so all the matters that were in argument can proceed. I see no difficulty about that.

My real problem is that I am very troubled about the way in which the new remedy is circumscribed with the presumption. It gives the opportunity for inaction to the wrongdoer. The Minister said that there is not a very heavy presumption, not much to make a fuss about, besides which there is the development of new jurisprudence—I love the idea of the Government wanting judges to develop new jurisprudence in the field of judicial review and I am very grateful to the Minister for that offer—but the only thing expressly required of a judge considering judicial review is to apply the presumption. Why is there not a presumption or a consideration that says that the judge must look at how determined the wrongdoer was to persist in his unlawful action? That would a consideration too, would it not? There is none of that in the Bill—it is just simply this presumption. I respectfully suggest that it is a heavy presumption, because it is the only one which appears in the Bill or which directs the court to a particular starting point.

As for the specialist judges—and they are specialist judges—the idea that they will not know about this new remedy and consider it is simply barking. Even if the judge had a bad moment and forgot about it, can you imagine any advocate acting for the wrongdoer who wished to have the order stand not drawing his or her attention to the presumption and saying, “This is the starting point, my Lord”? The judge will wake up and think about it. To enact legislation to encourage judges to develop jurisprudence is, if I may say so, one of the least good arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, has offered in his whole forensic career.

Judicial review is a discretionary remedy. The judge, having considered whether unlawfulness has been established —that is the first question and let us not overlook it—finds that it has. He then examines the nature of the unlawfulness. Is it fundamental? Is it procedural? Is it important procedural? Is it minimal procedural? Then he or she reflects on all the considerations that have come to bear—in other words, all the facts of the case—and makes a decision. Judges really do not need to have more than the broad discretion that judicial review has always offered, and which has made it one of the most fantastic developments in our administrative law in my professional career.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose these amendments. The power to make a prospective quashing order brings clear benefits. Such an order has more teeth than a mere declaration that a Secretary of State has acted unlawfully. It would be able to indicate that regulations will be quashed within a certain time from the date of judgment unless the Secretary of State in the meantime has properly performed his statutory duties and considered in the light of that exercise whether the regulations need to be revised and, if so, in what form. It is hard to see why that is not beneficial.

Further, the ability to make such orders will be especially useful in high-profile constitutional cases where it would be desirable for the court explicitly to acknowledge the supremacy of Parliament, and in cases where it is possible for a public body, given time, to cure a defect that has rendered its initial exercise of public power unlawful. I note that in his powerful piece in the Times last week, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, wrote that he strongly supported giving the court these powers. As he explained, these powers are not quite so radical as some suggest and, as we have heard, judicial review has always been a discretionary remedy.

The noble and learned Lord pointed out that

“high-profile cases well illustrate how discretion may properly be exercised against giving relief that would have disproportionate consequences for past events”.

He pointed to two examples:

“In Hurley and Moore … in 2012 the Divisional Court declined to quash the ministerial order permitting universities to increase student fees to £9,000. Quashing, the court said, ‘would cause administrative chaos’”.


He also explained that as long ago as 2005 in the House of Lords, in the case of Re Spectrum, seven of the court

“recognised that prospective overruling of erroneous decisions could be necessary”—

I stress that word—

“in the interests of justice where the decision would otherwise be ‘gravely unfair and (have) disruptive consequences for past transactions or happenings’. Although it was not exercised in that case, the power was recognised by five”

members of the court. It will ensure sensible, good administration. It will not bring injustice. These are real benefits.

As for the presumption, I have listened carefully and with the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but on this occasion I must differ from him. It is only a presumption; it means merely that the court must start from there. It is, as my noble friend Lord Faulks explained, a flag; it points it out; it reminds the court. It does not impose a destination. If there is good reason not to make such an order, the court will be obliged to follow its conscience and depart from the principle—but, if there is not good reason, why should there be a problem? In short, the court is simply prompted to do what good reason dictates.

This clause does not damage the rule of law. It is reasonable and just.