Yesterday the Government published its response to its Autumn consultation on the reform of Judicial Review. Following last year’s reforms, the response affirms the Government’s intention to continue to reduce the role judicial review can play in delaying and/or frustrating development.
The response confirms:
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a new specialist Planning Chamber is to be set up, but within the High Court rather than the Upper Tribunal (as previously proposed);
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a new permission filter will be introduced to S.288 appeals in order to weed out weak claims early on;
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a new threshold will be set which allows the court to refuse to grant leave or relief where the outcome for the claimant is unlikely to have been substantially different from that complained of;
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no proposals will be introduced to restrict “standing”;
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cost capping and tighter rules are being introduced for the use of Protective Cost Measures, but this will not extend to proceedings relating to environmental cases;
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measures be put in places to allow costs to be awarded more regularly against claimants following refusal of permission at oral hearings; and
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the ability to “leapfrog” cases straight to the Supreme Court will be less restricted.
Some of these measures have already found their way into the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. It is expected that changes to the Civil Procedure Rules will be introduced to deal with the operation of the Planning Chamber. It will be interesting to see if the reforms have a genuine impact both in deterring third parties from lodging judicial proceedings. The key issue is to ensure that the Planning Chamber is properly resourced so that any delays are kept to a minimum. That will always be far more important than the other measures.
