Judicial Review

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness is right to raise the important issue of vulnerable groups and people who represent themselves. However, a total of 11,359 applications were lodged in 2011, of which only 144 were successful. I hear what the noble Baroness says, and I am sure she will appreciate that for every application made in written form it is down to the judge to make an adjudication on whether it has merit to go forward. Even if the case is decided in the negative, the individual still has a right to take the matter forward to the Court of Appeal.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, will the Minister draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the oral evidence given to your Lordships’ Constitution Committee on 13 February by the president of the Supreme Court, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury? I refer in particular to where he said:

“If you have shorter time limits, the risk is that people start proceedings when maybe, if they had more time to think, they would not. There would be many more applications for extensions of time and you might find that the bright idea of cutting time limits turns out to increase the amount of litigation rather than decrease it”.

Does the Minister share these concerns? I declare my interest as a practising barrister.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord always comes to these matters with great wisdom and experience, which I fully acknowledge. Various groups, including the judiciary, were fully consulted in putting forward the response. The senior judiciary who were consulted included the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, the Master of the Rolls, the vice-president of the Court of Appeal, the Civil Division and Lord Justice Richards, the deputy head of Civil Justice. As I said earlier, in the case of such appeals the judge is there to decide if an extension is required to the time period. The noble Lord may have an opinion that this may extend the period, which his quote highlighted, but it is important that the right thing is done. If the judge decides to extend the time, so be it.