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169008

	registered interest
	date	09/12/2014
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Judicial Review
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the contribution of the Secretary of State for Justice on 1 December 2014, Official Report, column 73, on how many occasions in the last two years each government department has been threatened with judicial review; and in each such case, whether judicial review proceedings were subsequently (a) launched and (b) successful.
	tabling member constituency	Hammersmith
	tabling member printed	Mr Andy Slaughter
	uin	217847
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/12/2014 answer text <p>This information is not available. A ‘threat’ of judicial review could range for example from a pre-action letter sent to a central government department to an oral suggestion made at a stakeholder meeting.</p><p> </p><p>It is crucial that judicial review continues to hold public authorities to account for the right reasons. The Government’s reforms strike a fair and sensible balance between limiting the potential for the abuse of judicial review and protecting its vital role as a check on public authorities.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency North West Cambridgeshire answering member printed Mr Shailesh Vara question first answered 15/12/2014 15:27:53 answering member 1496 label Biography information for Shailesh Vara
	tabling member	1516 label Biography information for Andy Slaughter

169009

	registered interest
	date	09/12/2014
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Judicial Review
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the contribution of the Secretary of State for Justice on 1 December 2014, Official Report, column 72, what the evidential basis was for his statement that minor technicalities in process have been used as an excuse to bring judicial review.
	tabling member constituency	Hammersmith
	tabling member printed	Mr Andy Slaughter
	uin	217848
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/01/2015 answer text <p>The Government accepts that failures of procedure can amount to substantive unlawfulness, and that judicial review is a crucial mechanism by which such unlawfulness is considered and remedied by the court.</p><p> </p><p>However, we are concerned by the continuing potential for a judicial review to be brought on minor technical points which could not have, or which were highly unlikely to have, substantially affected the outcome for the applicant.</p><p> </p><p>The potential for this type of challenge has been recognised by the courts, which have developed an approach in case law under which, if the outcome would inevitably have been the same even if the alleged defect had not occurred, the court can refuse the remedy sought – see, for example, <em>R v The Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police, ex parte Cotton</em> [1990] IRLR 344.</p><p> </p><p>However, in the Government’s view the ‘inevitable’ threshold is too high to deal effectively with claims brought on minor technical points. Consequently, in clause 64 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill (as introduced into the House of Lords), the Government is legislating to provide for a ‘highly likely’ threshold.</p> answering member constituency Hemel Hempstead answering member printed Mike Penning question first answered 19/01/2015 16:59:01 answering member 1528 label Biography information for Sir Mike Penning
	tabling member	1516 label Biography information for Andy Slaughter

169010

	registered interest
	date	09/12/2014
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Judicial Review
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the contribution of the Secretary of State for Justice on 1 December 2014, Official Report, column 71, what assessment he has made of when and how the system of judicial review ceased to be based on common sense.
	tabling member constituency	Hammersmith
	tabling member printed	Mr Andy Slaughter
	uin	217849
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/12/2014 answer text <p>The Government has always been clear that judicial review, when used properly, can be a crucial component of the rule of law.</p><p> </p><p>But in the Government’s view, too often the system is open to abuse, and the common sense reforms, which, following two consultations, the Government has implemented and is seeking to implement, are needed to rebalance the system of judicial review.</p><p> </p><p>In the Government’s view, for example, the creation of a Planning Court, with the assistance of the judiciary, to speed up the consideration of challenges to key projects, is a common sense reform. That reform is now delivering significant improvements. The available evidence suggests planning judicial reviews are now significantly quicker as a result of the reforms which followed the first consultation and the introduction of the Planning Court in April 2014, which followed the second consultation. For those which reach a substantive hearing (i.e. excluding those refused permission or otherwise determined earlier in the process) the average time fell by around 30% from 54 weeks in the 12 months to April 2013 to 39 weeks in the 12 months to September 2014. This is a substantial improvement in advance of the rest of the reforms taking effect.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency North West Cambridgeshire answering member printed Mr Shailesh Vara question first answered 17/12/2014 14:02:29 answering member 1496 label Biography information for Shailesh Vara
	tabling member	1516 label Biography information for Andy Slaughter