MPs and peers renew attack on Government reforms to judicial review

MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on Human Rights have repeated their objection to a number of the Government’s proposed changes to judicial review.

In a report on the Serious Crime, Criminal Justice and Courts and Armed Forces Bills, the JCHR said the changes “go too far in restricting access to court to hold the Government to account for acting unlawfully”.

In particular the committee cited the Government’s measures in relation to the capping of costs, interveners’ costs, procedural defects and substantive outcomes, and the power of the Lord Chancellor to redefine public interest proceedings.

The JCHR claimed in a previous report in April that the evidence base justifying the judicial review reforms was “weak”.

However, in September the Government defended its reforms to judicial review, saying it was “particularly keen to reduce the extent to which legal challenge unduly hinders economic development and regeneration”.

This was in response to a highly critical report from another Parliamentary committee, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Dr Hywel Francis MP, the Chair of the Committee, said: “The Government’s proposed reforms to judicial review….go too far, because they will make it too difficult for people to go to court to hold the Government to account for acting unlawfully.

“As we said in our Report on Judicial Review earlier this year, this is about upholding the rule of law, and we hope the House of Lords will amend the Bill in ways we have recommended. This ought to stop the Government from making it more difficult for it to be challenged in court.”

In other comments – in relation to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill – the JCHR meanwhile suggested that the criminal, not civil, standard of proof should be applied with regard to provisions in the Bill proposing to strike out personal injury claims involving fundamental dishonesty.